After we had reposed ourselves a little, Outalisso rose up and motioned that I should accompany him. He conducted me to a small pile of brushwood and dry leaves, part of which he immediately removed, and I saw the corpse of Thakakawerenté stretched beneath. I shrank back, shuddering with horror, but he pulled me forwards, and said I must assist him in conveying the body to the fire. Seeing me still unwilling, he took it up in his arms, and, hurrying away, deposited it in the wigwam. I followed him, and asked what he meant by doing so. “Are you ignorant of our customs?” said he. “When an Indian dies, all his property must be buried with him. He who takes anything that belonged to a dead person, will receive a curse from the Great Spirit in addition. After I had killed Thakakawerenté, I took up his tomahawk by mistake, and carried it away with me. I must now restore it, and also cover him with earth lest his bones should whiten in the sun.”
Outalisso now proceeded to arrange the dress of the dead man, and likewise stuck the tomahawk in his girdle. He next went a little way into the forest for the purpose of collecting some bark to put in the bottom of the grave, and I was left alone.
The night was dark, dim, and dreary, and the fire blazed feebly and irregularly. A superstitious awe stole over me, and I dared hardly look around, though I sometimes cast an almost involuntary glance at the corpse, which had a wild and fearful appearance. Thakakawerenté lay upon his back, and his long, lank, black hair was spread confusedly upon his breast and neck. His half-open eyes still retained a glassy lustre, and his teeth were firmly set against each other. Large dashes of blood stained his vest, and his clenched hands and contracted limbs showed what struggles had preceded death. When the flickering light of the fire happened to fall upon him, I almost fancied that he began to move, and would have started away had not a depressing dread chained me to the spot; but the sound of Outalisso’s axe in some degree dissipated the fears that chilled my heart, and I spent the time in listening to the regular recurrence of its strokes, until he came back with an armful of bark.
I assisted him in burying Thakakawerenté under the shade of a tall walnut-tree; and when we had accomplished this, we returned to the fire, and waited till moonlight would enable us to pursue our journey. Outalisso had willingly agreed to conduct me home, for he wished to change his abode for a season, lest Thakakawerenté’s relations should discover his guilt, and execute vengeance upon him.
We set out about an hour after midnight, and travelled through the woods till dawn, when we came in sight of the river, on the banks of which I had first fallen in with the Indians. In the course of the day Outalisso procured a canoe, and we paddled up the stream, and next morning reached the trading-post on the side of the lake.