the States of New England. But Gershom had been so long at the
Northwest as to have lost many of his peculiar habits and opinions,
and to have obtained substitutes.

Of the Indians, one, an elderly, wary, experienced warrior, was a
Pottawattamie, named Elksfoot, who was well known at all the
trading-houses and "garrisons" of the northwestern territory,
including Michigan as low down as Detroit itself. The other red man
was a young Chippewa, or O-jeb-way, as the civilized natives of that
nation now tell us the word should be spelled. His ordinary
appellation among his own people was that of Pigeonswing; a name
obtained from the rapidity and length of his flights. This young
man, who was scarcely turned of five-and-twenty, had already
obtained a high reputation among the numerous tribes of his nation,
as a messenger, or "runner."

Accident had brought these four persons, each and all strangers to
one another, in communication in the glade of the Oak Openings,
which has already been mentioned, within half an hour of the scene
we are about to present to the reader. Although the rencontre had
been accompanied by the usual precautions of those who meet in a
wilderness, it had been friendly so far; a circumstance that was in
some measure owing to the interest they all took in the occupation
of the bee-hunter. The three others, indeed, had come in on
different trails, and surprised le Bourdon in the midst of one of
the most exciting exhibitions of his art--an exhibition that awoke
so much and so common an interest in the spectators, as at once to
place its continuance for the moment above all other considerations.
After brief salutations, and wary examinations of the spot and its
tenants, each individual had, in succession, given his grave