“The poor fool,” I said sadly.

The young Oneida in yellow clapped the scalp against a tree-trunk carelessly, as though we could not easily see by his blazing eyes and quivering nostrils that this was his first scalp taken in war. Then he washed the blade of his knife in the river, wiped it dry and sheathed it, and squatted down to braid the dead hair into the hunters-lock.

We found his still smouldering fire and some split fish baking in green leaves; nets, hooks, spears, and a bark shoulder-basket. And he had been a King’s savage truly enough, foraging, no doubt, for Brant or Butler, who had great difficulty in maintaining themselves in a territory which they had so utterly laid waste — for we found in his tobacco pouch a few shillings and pennies, and some pewter buttons stamped,