INDIAN ADVENTURE RACCOON SHOOTING. 89 



hit, he let go the horse, brought forward his rifle, and 

 fired, when more dark figures appeared right and left. 

 He turned his horse, and gave him the spurs. He sank 

 fainting to the ground, and the dark blood flowed out as 

 we opened his clothes. He was hit in three places, and 

 two of the wounds were mortal. After a few minutes 

 he raised himself again, gave us each a hand, which we 

 pressed in silence, drew a deep breath, and fell back a 

 corpse. We buried him on the spot, and vowed a deep 

 revenge, which we faithfully consummated : a few nights 

 afterwards, the wolves were tearing the flesh from three 

 corpses over the fresh grave." 



Having finished his tale, my host sat for some time 

 with his head leaning on his hand, thinking of times long 

 past. His wife had fallen asleep : she had, probably, 

 heard the tale many times before, and as it was rather 

 late, we were all glad to retire. 



The dogs barked several times during the night, and 

 about an hour and a half before daylight, they were 

 quite furious ; supposing their excitement to be caused 

 by raccoons, or opossums, we started up, and took our 

 guns, called the dogs, and went into the piercing cold 

 morning air, though it was too dark to see one's hand ; 

 my thin deer-skin moccasins were soon frozen, which by 

 no means added to my agreeable sensations. The bark 

 of the dogs soon showed that they had chased something 

 to a tree. As our feet were dreadfully cold, and it was 

 still too dark to shoot, we lighted a fire, and though the 

 dogs enjoyed its warmth, they never forgot the object of 

 our being there, keeping their eyes fixed on the tree, and 

 giving, from time to time, a short impatient howl At 



