[*] The Americans call the autumn the "fall," from the fall of the
leaf.
Though nakedness might, as usual, be given as the pervading character
of the spot, whither it is now necessary to transfer the scene of the
tale, it was not entirely without the signs of human life. Amid the
monotonous rolling of the prairie, a single naked and ragged rock
arose on the margin of a little watercourse, which found its way,
after winding a vast distance through the plains, into one of the
numerous tributaries of the Father of Rivers. A swale of low land lay
near the base of the eminence; and as it was still fringed with a
thicket of alders and sumack, it bore the signs of having once
nurtured a feeble growth of wood. The trees themselves had been
transferred, however, to the summit and crags of the neighbouring
rocks. On this elevation the signs of man, to which the allusion just
made applies, were to be found.
Seen from beneath, there were visible a breast-work of logs and
stones, intermingled in such a manner as to save all unnecessary
labour, a few low roofs made of bark and boughs of trees, an
occasional barrier, constructed like the defences on the summit, and
placed on such points of the acclivity as were easier of approach than
the general face of the eminence; and a little dwelling of cloth,
perched on the apex of a small pyramid, that shot up on one angle of
the rock, the white covering of which glimmered from a distance like a
spot of snow, or, to make the simile more suitable to the rest of the
subject, like a spotless and carefully guarded standard, which was to
be protected by the dearest blood of those who defended the citadel
beneath.
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