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"Wenonga!" cried Nathan, with extraordinary vivacity, his whole countenance, in fact, lighting up with the animation of intense interest, "an old man tall and raw-boned, a scar on his nose and cheek, a halt in his gait, his left middle-finger short of a joint, and a buzzard's beak and talons tied to his hair? It is Wenonga, the Black-Vulture.
As they thridded the lonely forest-paths together, Nathan explained at length the circumstances upon which he founded his hopes of success in their project; and, in doing so, convinced the soldier, not only that his sagacity was equal to the enterprise, but that his acquaintance with the wilderness was by no means confined to the region south of the Ohio; the northern countries, then wholly in the possession of the Indian tribes, appearing to be just as well known to him, the Miami country in particular, in which lay the village of the Black-Vulture.
At last, as they drew nearer the fire, an old Indian staggered among the group, who made way for him with a kind of respect, as was, indeed, his due, for he was no other than the old Black-Vulture himself. Limping up to the prisoner, with as much ferocity as his drunkenness would permit, he laid one hand upon his shoulder, and with the other aimed a furious hatchet-blow at his head.
Truly, little Peter! thee is but a dolt and a dog, that thee told me nothing about it!" The soldier remarked, with some surprise, the change of Nathan's visage, and with still more, his angry reproaches of the trusty animal, the first he had heard him utter. "And who then is the old Black-Vulture," he asked, "that he should drive from your mind even the thought of my poor wretched Edith?"
Others again fled towards the meadows and corn-fields, where, in like manner, they were intercepted by bands of mounted Long-knives, who seemed pouring into the valley from every hill. In short, it was soon made apparent that the village of the Black-Vulture was assailed from all sides, and by such an army of avenging white men as had never before penetrated into the Indian territory.
The twilight was darkening in the west, when the three adventurers, stealing through tangled thickets, and along lonely ridges, carefully avoiding all frequented paths, looked out at last, from a distant hill, upon the valley in which lay the village of the Black-Vulture.
"He that would follow upon the heels of Wenonga," said Nathan, "must walk wide of his footsteps, for fear lest he should suddenly tread on the old reptile's tail. Thee don't know the craft of an old Injun that expects to be followed, as, truly, it is like the Black-Vulture may expect it now.
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