"I say, Mose! lend me a hand."
On looking round, I could not forbear laughing. The manner in which the arrow had passed through Arnold's neck compelled him to protrude his head in front of him in such a strangely quaint fashion. Mirth would have been compulsory, even in one at the point of death.
Of course, while laughing, I had pulled out the unpleasant addition to his muscular anatomy.
Upon counting the bodies of the dead, we found seventeen. The remainder of the party had managed to effect an escape.
After this we returned to the mouth of the gorge, where we did not find Captain Knight and the blue-coats waiting for us. We felt considerably mortified by the fact, that although the slain red-skins might have been a portion of Smoke-creek Sam's band, he himself was, as decidedly, not amongst them.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] These stones are ranged in a circle or semicircle, to indicate the quarter of the moon. Within these, the number of fragments of rock calendars the number of days from it. Other signs tell whether these indications are left by a war or hunting party, and how many of them there are. There are, besides, other marks, which tell whether the deer is in the velvet and all the changes it is subject to, which are invaluable to the hunter who is able to read them.