There was one thing that characterized all the warriors, and that was a love of boasting and self-glorification. Every one represented himself as a hero and as performing the most wonderful feats of strength and valor. Boasting, I suspect, is a thing that naturally belongs to those who have little refinement, and modesty is doubtless the fruit of those finer sentiments which belong to civilization.
For several days there were sports and festivities, and every one seemed to give himself up to amusement. The warriors had brought home with them a young Indian prisoner, who was about eighteen years old. He was a fine, proud-looking fellow, and when he was brought out and encircled by all the Indians, he seemed to survey them with a kind of scorn. He was tied to a stake, and the young Indians, stationed at a certain distance, were allowed to shoot their arrows at him. Several of them hit him, and the blood trickled freely down his body. He stood unmoved, however, and seemed not to notice the wounds. The women then surrounded him, and jeered at him, making mouths, and pinching his flesh, and punching him with sharp sticks.
At last, it was determined by the warriors, to let him loose upon the prairie and give him a chance of escape. The warriors were to pursue him. If he was retaken, he was to die; if he outran his pursuers, he was to have his liberty.
The prisoner was unbound and placed at the distance of about six rods in advance of those who were to pursue him; the signal was given, and he departed. He seemed fleet as the mountain deer, and life was the wager for which he ran. He was, however, pursued by more than a dozen Indians, scarcely less lightfooted than himself. He struck across the prairie, which lay stretched out for several miles, almost as level as the sea, and in the distance, was skirted by the forest.
He kept in advance of his pursuers, who strained every nerve to overtake him. On he flew, casting an occasional glance backward. The yells broke often from his pursuers, but he was silent. It was for life that he fled, and he would not waste a breath. On he sped, and as he and his followers seemed to grow less and less in the distance, my eyes grew weary of the scene. But such was the interest that I felt for the poor fugitive that I kept my gaze bent upon the chase for almost an hour.
The Indians seemed at last in the remote distance to be dwindled to the size of insects; they still strained every limb, though they seemed scarcely to move; they still yelled with all their might, but only an occasional faint echo reached our ears. At last, the fugitive plunged into the forest; his pursuers followed, and they were lost to the view. After the lapse of several hours, the pursuing party returned, without their prisoner. He was at liberty in the unbounded forest.
The Smuggler.
Who would imagine that a dog had been made serviceable as a clerk, and thus made for his master upwards of a hundred thousand crowns? And yet an incident like this happened upwards of forty years since. One of those industrious beings who know how to live by skinning flints, determined, in extreme poverty, to engage in trade. He preferred that species of merchandise which occupied the least space, and was calculated to yield the greatest profit. He borrowed a small sum of money from a friend, and repairing to Flanders, he there bought pieces of lace, which he smuggled into France in the following manner.
He trained an active spaniel to his purpose. He caused him to be shaved, and procured for him the skin of another dog, of the same hair and the same shape. He then rolled his lace round the body of his dog, and put over it the garment of the stranger so adroitly, that it was impossible to discover the trick. The lace being thus arranged, he would say to his docile messenger, “Forward, my friend.” At the words, the dog would start, and pass boldly through the gates of Malines or Valenciennes, in the face of the vigilant officer placed there to prevent smuggling. Having thus passed the bounds, he would wait his master at a little distance in the open country. There they mutually caressed and feasted, and the merchant placed his rich packages in a place of security, renewing his occupation as occasion required. Such was the success of this smuggler that in less than five or six years he amassed a handsome fortune and kept his coach.