360 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



joicings ; the Indians, who had indulged largely, 

 many of them to excess, in the fire-water of the 

 pale-faces, retired to their huts, to sleep off the effects 

 of their libations. It was past midnight, and the vil- 

 lage and its environs were buried in profound repose, 

 when a man, carrying a naked sabre under his arm, 

 advanced with stealthy steps from the shore, towards 

 the Miko's wigwam. He reached the trees in front 

 of the dwelling; and after casting a cautious and 

 searching glance around him, was about to retrace 

 his steps, when, with the quickness of light, a noose 

 of buffalo-hide encircled his neck, and he was thrown 

 to the ground with a shock so sudden and irresistible, 

 that it seemed caused by a supernatural rather than a 

 human power. His sabre fell from his hand before 

 he had time to raise it to his neck and sever the 

 noose ; and so rapidly and silently did all this take 

 place, that a group of armed men, stationed between 

 the creek and the cottage, at scarcely forty paces from 

 the latter, were perfectly unaware of what occurred. 

 Kow, however, a yell that might have roused the 

 dead from their graves was heard ; the door of the 

 council wigwam, in which the bridal-bed of Canondah 

 and El Sol had been spread, was burst furiously open, 

 and by the flash of several muskets, just then fired 

 from the shore, a powerful figure, bearing something 

 heavy in its arms, was seen to rush out and plunge 

 into the neighbouring thicket. Other cries, proceed- 

 ing apparently from a thousand throats, multiplied 



