the middle of a thick group of cedars, we found Mrs. Tom alone with her
elvish children, seated before the great fire that burned in the centre of
the camp; she was busy boiling some bark in an iron spider. The little
boys, in red flannel shirts, which were their only covering, were
tormenting a puppy, which seemed to take their pinching and pommelling in
good part, for it neither attempted to bark nor to bite, but like the eels
in the story, submitted to the infliction because it was used to it. Mrs.
Tom greeted us with a grin of pleasure, and motioned us to sit down upon a
buffalo skin, which, with a courtesy so natural to the Indians, she had
placed near her for our accommodation.

"You are all alone," said I, glancing round the camp. "Ye'es; Indian away
hunting--Upper Lakes. Come home with much deer."

"And Susan, where is she?"

"By and by," (meaning that she was coming). "Gone to fetch water--ice
thick--chop with axe--take long time."

As she ceased speaking, the old blanket that formed the door of the tent
was withdrawn, and the girl, bearing two pails of water, stood in the open
space, in the white moonlight. The glow of the fire streamed upon her
dark, floating locks, danced in the black, glistening eye, and gave a
deeper blush to the olive cheek! She would have made a beautiful picture;
Sir Joshua Reynolds would have rejoiced in such a model--so simply
graceful and unaffected, the very _beau ideal_ of savage life and
unadorned nature. A smile of recognition passed between us. She put down
her burden beside Mrs. Tom, and noiselessly glided to her seat.

We had scarcely exchanged a few words with our favourite, when the old