explosive, yelping, barking cries answered by dozens of guttural
protesting grunts from the older men, who sat eating or eagerly waiting
their turn to grab meat. It was a trying moment. Would the whole band
leap up and start a dance which might end in boiling blood and tiger
fury and a massacre? But the young Huron brave stopped them, aided no
doubt by the smell of the cooking flesh and the protest of the older
men. There would be no war-dance--at least not yet--too much hunger in
the band and the means of satisfying it were too close and tempting.
Solomon had foreseen the peril and his cunning had prevented it.

In a letter he has thus described the incident: "It were a band o'
cutthroat robbers an' runnygades from the Ohio country--Hurons, Algonks
an' Mingos an' all kinds o' cast off red rubbish with an old Algonk
chief o' the name o' Splitnose. They stuffed their hides with the meat
till they was stiff as a foundered hoss. They grabbed an' chawed an'
bolted it like so many hogs an' reached out fer more, which is the
differ'nce betwixt an Injun an' a white man. The white man gen'ally
knows 'nough to shove down the brakes on a side-hill. The Injun ain't
got no brakes on his wheels. Injuns is a good deal like white brats.
Let 'em find the sugar tub when their ma is to meetin' an' they won't
worry 'bout the bellyache till it comes. Them Injuns filled themselves
to the gullet an' begun to lay back, all swelled up, an' roll an' grunt
an' go to sleep. By an' by they was only two that was up an' pawin'
eround in the stew pot fer 'nother bone, lookin' kind o' unsart'tn an'
jaw weary. In a minute they wiped their hands on their ha'r an' lay
back fer rest. They was drunk with the meat, as drunk as a Chinee
a'ter a pipe o' opium. We white men stretched out with the rest on 'em
till we see they was all in the land o' nod. Then we riz an' set up a
hussle. Hones' we could 'a' killed 'em with a hammer an' done it
delib'rit. I started to pull the young Huron out o' the bunch. He