60 AUDUBON THE NATURALIST. 



before anotlier dawn, one mortal enemy of the 

 Eedskins should have ceased to live. The 

 squaws, who amused themselves with ransack- 

 ing his hunting shirt for booty, now succeeded 

 so well in their search as to find a large flask of 

 Monongahela (strong whisky), while a barbarous 

 grin on their ferocious faces told their delight 

 at the discovery. A silently disguised satis- 

 faction filled the Colonel's heart at the prospect 

 of their intoxication. Wishing the bottle ten 

 times as large, or filled with aquafortis, etc., he 

 beheld it pass from mouth to mouth, midst songs 

 and outcries of wild revelry. He observed also, 

 however, with a depression which made his 

 hopes sink, that the women, his least formidable 

 antagonists, drank far more freely than the 

 warriors. At the report of a gun in the distance 

 the men suddenly jumped to their feet, and 

 singing and dancing were for a while discon- 

 tinued, for a consultation between the warriors 

 and their wives, of which the Colonel plainly 

 perceived he was the cause. In a few minutes 

 the men departed, leaving the squaws alone, as 

 he hoped, to guard him. In five minutes more 

 the flask was drained, and very soon he beheld, 

 with inexpressible delight, unmistakeable signs 

 of intoxication manifested by the tumbling snor- 

 ing company. The Colonel following the exam- 

 ple of the assembly, from a very different motive, 



