somewhat darker hue. His trowsers were of the same
material, and both were girt around his loins by a common
belt of black leather, fastened by a plain white buckle,
into which was thrust a sheath of black leather also,
containing a large knife peculiar to the backwoodsmen of
that day. His feet were encased in moccasins, and on his
head, covered with strong dark hair, was carelessly donned
a slouched hat of common black felt, with several plaited
folds of the sweet grass, of the adjoining prairie for
a band. He was seemingly a man of strong muscular power,
while his stern dark eye denoted firmness and daring.

The elder of the two men, to whom this individual stood,
evidently, in the character of a superior, was a short
thick-set person of about fifty, with huge whiskers that,
originally black, had been slightly grizzled by time.
His eyebrows were bushy and overhanging, and almost
concealed the small, and twinkling eyes, which it required
the beholder to encounter more than once before he could
decide their true color to be a dark gray. A blanket coat
that had once been white, but which the action of some
half dozen winters had changed into a dirty yellow,
enveloped his rather full form, around which it was
confined by a coarse worsted sash of mingled blue and
red, thickly studded with minute white beads. His trowsers,
with broad seams, after the fashion of the Indian legging,
were of a dark crimson, approaching to a brick-dust color,
and on his feet he wore the stiff shoe-pack, which, with
the bonnet bleu on his grizzled head, and the other parts
of his dress already described, attested him to be what