CHAPTER VII.
THE INDIAN VILLAGE.
When Custaloga left his companion in that wild gully of the woods, he began his journey with all that caution and circumspection for which his race have so long been widely celebrated. His ear drank in every sound, he trod the woods with the lightness of a fawn, his feet scarcely stirred the leaves and twigs which covered the ground, and his arms were so held as to avoid all chance of contact with the trees.
There was something singularly solemn in the aspect of the forest through which the red-man glided noiselessly, stealthily, as a snake does through the tall prairie grass or the thick under-brush. For some time his path led through the thicket that skirted the side of the stream. This, however, he crossed at the first convenient opportunity, and plunged deep into the forest itself. It now became truly a matter of wonder how he guided himself, how he found his way. All was darkness, gloom, and night. There was not a sound to tell that nature was not dead. Not an owl hooted, not a wild beast was heard to roar; and the gentle sighing of trees in the light air that prevailed, was all that told that nature still lived and ruled creation.
But Custaloga moved along with the unerring instinct of a woodman, one of the first features of whose woodcraft was to find his way where no man else could guide himself. When one has become in some degree accustomed to the forest and the prairie, it is singular with what ease he penetrates in a direct line through wilds where there seems no guide.
But the moss on the trees, the pebbles in the path, the color of the bark, the twinkling of a star, the point of a rock, are indications to the hunter as sure as sign-post or road. As, however, Custaloga proceeded, he slackened his pace, until at last he paused, looked round, and then seated himself at the foot of a tree. He was now on the summit of a gentle slope, very thickly wooded, but with scarcely any undergrowth of bushes.
Custaloga had rested himself for about five minutes, and had in that time gained breath and considered the course now to be adopted. He began by hiding his rifle behind a tree, whence he could easily snatch it, but where, from several trunks being together, no one could very easily see it in passing.
He then lay flat on his face, his ear to the ground. The change from the stillness of night in that gloomy thicket to what he now heard, was very singular and striking. He seemed quite surrounded by busy life, by some phantasmagorial life, through which he could hear murmuring, whispering, buzzing, but which he could not see. The gentle wind which prevailed came up the slope, and brought with it sounds of warriors gravely talking, of maidens laughing, of women scolding, of dogs growling over a bone—all the usual manifestations, in fact, of Indian life.
“Ugh,” muttered Custaloga, whose Wyandot caution had served him well.