The hostile bands were now separated by the water. The width of the
stream was too great to admit of the use of the ordinary Indian
missiles, but a few useless shots were exchanged from the fusees of
the chiefs, more in bravado than with any expectation of doing
execution. As some time was suffered to elapse, in demonstrations and
abortive efforts, we shall leave them, for that period, to return to
such of our characters as remained in the hands of the savages.
We have shed much ink in vain, and wasted quires, that might possibly
have been better employed, if it be necessary now to tell the reader
that few of the foregoing movements escaped the observation of the
experienced trapper. He had been, in common with the rest, astonished
at the sudden act of Hard-Heart; and there was a single moment when a
feeling of regret and mortification got the better of his longings to
save the life of the youth. The simple and well-intentioned old man
would have felt, at witnessing any failure of firmness on the part of
a warrior, who had so strongly excited his sympathies, the same
species of sorrow that a Christian parent would suffer in hanging over
the dying moments of an impious child.
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