for Black Snake had much to do and much to bring about before the fiery
eye would again throw his searching rays upon this wild and wayward
child of the forest.

A fierce and fixed expression settled on his swarthy features,
contradicting all that assumed humility while in the presence of the
chiefs.

Following a direct path to the south-west, with his fast Indian lope,
crossing the creeks on the well-known beaver bridges, nothing impeded
his speed, and in an incredibly short time he found himself on the brow
of the great stony hill, where his path soon struck the river trail,
leaving the council of chiefs many miles behind him to the north. He
gave a peculiar whoop, composed, of a quick succession of notes
terminating in a prolonged sound, which made the forest ring till it
died away in the distance, silencing terrified bird and squirrel and
making the stillness that followed doubly still. Speeding on toward the
lodge, as he neared the great water-fall, he again repeated the shrill
call; this time faint answers reached him from different directions.

Then a sharp, solitary note, repeated at short intervals, and answered,
in the same, manner, and with the exclamation "Hugh!" in a satisfied
tone, the tired warrior seated himself for the first time since morning
at the root of a large tree, holding his head in his dark sinewy hands,
as if that was more weary even than his' over-exercised limbs. Soon
there appeared several Indian boys and old women from different sides of
the trail. He held a hasty confidential talk with them. That he did not
truthfully explain anything, in fact, misrepresented the whole, was only
too natural for Black Snake. But in his own way he revealed the final
decision, making a double sacrifice of the human offering--both body and