about half way up the trunk. "I was right, you see," he said. "After
all, it nothing but a bear; but we may as well shoot the brute that has
given us so much trouble."

They set to work immediately with their axes to fell the tree. It began
to totter, when a dark object, they could not tell what, in the dim
twilight, crawled from its place of concealment to the extremity of a
branch, and from thence sprung into the next tree. Snatching up their
rifles, they both fired together; when, to their astonishment, instead
of a bear, a young Indian squaw, with a wild yell, fell to the ground.
They ran to the spot where she lay motionless, and carried her to the
borders of the wood, where they had that morning dismounted. Richard
lifted her on his horse, and springing himself into the saddle, carried
the almost lifeless body before him. The poor creature never spoke.
Several times they stopped, thinking she was dead: her pulse only told
the spirit had not flown from its earthly tenement. When they reached
the river which had been crossed by them before, they washed the wounds,
and sprinkled water on her face. This appeared to revive her; and when
Richard again lifted her in his arms to place her on his horse, he
fancied he heard her mutter, in Iroquois, one word,--"revenged!" It was
a strange sight, those two powerful men tending so carefully the being
they had a few hours before sought to slay, and endeavoring to stanch
the blood that flowed from wounds which they had made! Yet so it was. It
would have appeared to them a sin to leave the Indian woman to die; yet
they felt no remorse at having inflicted the wound, and doubtless would
have been better pleased had it been mortal; but they would not have
murdered a wounded enemy, even an Indian warrior, still less a squaw.
The party continued their journey until midnight, when they stopped, to
rest their jaded horses. Having wrapped the squaw in their bear-skins,
they lay down themselves, with no covering save the clothes they wore.