Page:Barbour--Metipoms Hostage.djvu/220

206 grumbling wrathfully, the Indian wove three red feathers into his hair, and, picking up the  bow that Sequanawah had fashioned, put it  in his hand.

“Now!” he announced. “Go and see yourself in the water of the spring, my brother, and be vain.”

“More like ashamed,” David grumbled. “Whither do we go, and when?”

“I know not whither, but when the women are ready for the journey we start.”

David pushed aside the skin that hid the entrance and gazed forth in astonishment. The Indian village was gone save for the palisade and, here and there, a bark wigwam. Otherwise the lodges were down and the skins and mats that had formed them  were rolled and tied with thongs and lay  ready for transportation on the backs of the  squaws. Fires still smouldered and a few families were yet partaking of food. Dogs barked excitedly and the younger children  called shrilly. Everywhere was confusion and bustle.

As David watched the unusual scene, the sun, hotly red, crept over the rim of the  world and in the valley eastward the blue-gray mist wavered above the parched earth.