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Updated: May 7, 2025
Thus precarious is the supply of food among the Red-men, who on one day are starving, and the next are revelling in superabundance. But to return to our story. At one end of this village the creek sprang over a ledge of rock in a low cascade and opened out into a beautiful lake, the bosom of which was studded with small islands.
I felt at the time that there was at least one pale-face who loved her better than all the red-men or women on earth, but a sense of justice caused me to repudiate the general idea. "No, Waboose," said I, firmly, "that is a mistake. Rough surroundings and a harsh life will indeed modify the heart's affections, but the mere colour of the skin has nothing to do with it.
Joel certainly betrayed nervousness, though he kept close at his companion's side, and together they proceeded into the very centre of the party of strangers. The captain observed, also, that this arrival caused no visible sensation among the red-men. Even those the major almost touched in passing did not look up to note his appearance, while no one seemed to speak, or in any manner to heed him.
These natives, who, owing to the reddish copper-colour of their skins, are called red-men, were dressed chiefly in clothes made of deer-skin; cut much in the same fashion as the garments worn by Jasper Derry.
Self-restraint, at least in some matters, is a characteristic of the red-men, and they remained very patiently and silently there; even the children spoke in whispers, and gazed in solemn earnestness at our slumbering camp. When we rose and began active preparations for breakfast, the little ones melted away influenced either by fear or by the orders of their parents.
With a delicacy, that none know better how to practise than an Indian warrior, he made no direct mention of the rapacious temper, that so many of them had betrayed, in their dealings with the Red-men.
As respects Deerslayer, though he took a pride in showing his white blood, by often deviating from the usages of the red-men, he frequently dropped into their customs, and oftener into their feelings, unconsciously to himself, in consequence of having no other arbiters to appeal to, than their judgments and tastes.
Isolated families, small bodies of men, and the lonely traveler through the forest, never were secure from the stealthy attacks of the red-men. Deep in the gloom of the solemn wilderness, many a deadly conflict occurred between the hunter and the Indian. Often the victim sunk noiselessly to the turf, and his bones bleached for years in these wilds, while none but his slayer knew of his fate.
Yet in the memory of his heart the mother of Weeum will live, and Waboose and Muxbee, and the tall pale-face chief, who won the hearts of the red-men by his justice and his love. The dark-haired pale-face, too, will never be forgotten. Each year, as it goes and comes, Big Otter will come again to Sunny Creek about the time that the plovers whistle in the air.
The red-men fled in panic along the narrow isthmus between the swamps and river straight upon the ambushed army of Jackson, who mowed them down with bullets as falls the grass before the scythes.
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