"The savage scout, Le Vipre Noir, as he was named, was one of the Lenni-Lenappe—or unmixed race as they boast themselves—who once occupied all the vast tract of country which lies between Penobscot and the shores of the Potomac; but we styled the most of them Delawares, and by that name they became known.
"Well, this devil of a Delaware—I think I can see the fellow now!—was a model of muscular strength and manly beauty, so far as form and sinew go. He was like a colossal statue of polished copper. His usual expression was fierce and sullen; his eyes were keen, black, and glittering, and his red and yellow streaks of war-paint lent a fiendish aspect to his dusky visage, the features of which were otherwise clean cut and regular. He was somewhat of a dandy in his own way, as his fur mocassins and hunting-shirt were gaily ornamented with scarlet cloth, wampum, and beads, by the Delaware girls.
"His head had been denuded of hair entirely, save the scalp-lock, in which two feathers were stuck. At his girdle hung his pipe and hunting-pouch, a large musk-rat skin, in the tail of which his keen-edged scalping-knife was sheathed; he had also a pouch for ammunition, a long rifle, and a tomahawk, which were never from his side by night or day.
"This Delaware was from one of the native villages about the upper end of the Penobscot river, where the chiefs had signed a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, with our government, and had sworn to have no communication with the Americans or others, the king's enemies, without the knowledge of the officer commanding the British forces in North America.
"One of our men, named Jack Andrews, had quarrelled with the Delaware, about a wild goose they had shot. Blows were exchanged; the savage drew his scalping-knife; but the Borderer clubbed his musket, and laid the red-skin sprawling among the reeds. Peace was enforced between them; but the savage was more than ever sullen and reserved, doubtless brooding on the vengeance he meant to take.
"Such was Le Vipre Noir, who will bear rather a conspicuous part in my little story.
"It was a lovely evening, I have said, when we took possession of the sequestered picquet-house. The rays of the setting sun, as he sank beyond those grand and lofty mountain ranges, which rise between the source of the Hudson and Lake Champlain, shed a red glow across the water, and bathed in warm light the foliage of the mighty primeval forest, which for ages had clothed the shores of that magnificent lake. In the immediate foreground the bayonets of my sentinels seemed tipped with fire, as they trod slowly to and fro upon their posts in that voiceless solitude. Before the log-hut the arms were piled, and my soldiers, with the Cornishman, were cooking their supper, while the swarthy Indian scout was squatted on his hams at a little distance, smoking listlessly or half asleep, as the duty of searching in the woods usually devolved upon him after nightfall.
"I, too, lit my pipe, and the pouch from which I took my tobacco called back to mind some half-forgotten thoughts and fancies.
"They were lovely hands that embroidered that pouch for me, and it was associated with many a promenade in Paul Street, when we were quartered in Montreal, with balls at her father's house, in the Rue de Notre Dame, flirtation and ices in the Place d'Armes, where the French troops used to parade of old—for, in short, that tobacco-pouch had been made for me by Ella Carleton, the belle of that old colonial city.
"She had a dash of the old French blood in her, and hence her dark hair and eyes, which contrasted so wonderfully with her pure English skin, and hence her continental form of eyelid and drooping lash. So I sighed as I thought of a year ago—cursed the emergencies of the service that banished me to Fort St. John, and passed my fair Ella's present to the sergeant of the picquet, that he might supply himself, for active service is a true leveller, and without impairing discipline leads to a spirit of camaraderie not to be found in such tented fields as Hyde Park or the Phœnix at Dublin.