They were abandoned to the vultures and the urubus, for whom they would furnish an ample feast, and who, attracted by the odour of blood, were already hovering over them, uttering lugubrious cries of joy.
The formidable troop of Captain Waktehno was thus annihilated. Unfortunately there were other pirates in the prairies.
After the execution, the Indians re-entered their huts carelessly; for them it had only been one of those spectacles to which they had been for a long time accustomed, and which have no effect upon their nerves.
The trappers, on the contrary, notwithstanding the rough life they lead, and the frequency with which they see blood shed—either their own or that of other people, dispersed silently and noiselessly, with hearts oppressed by the spectacle of this frightful butchery.
Loyal Heart and the general directed their steps towards the grotto.
The ladies, shut up in the interior of the cavern, were ignorant of the terrible drama that had been played, and of the sanguinary expiation which had terminated it.
[1] All this scene is historical, and strictly true; the author was present in Apacheria, at a similar execution.