Page:Barbour--Metipoms Hostage.djvu/222

208, but armed and watchful, went the warriors, all painted and panoplied with bows and spears. Well in the van stalked Woosonametiporn, a striking figure in a cloak of green cloth edged with soft yellow feathers  below which his unclad legs emerged startlingly. Much wampum he wore, and his face was disfigured with ;a blue disk on each  cheek and a figure not unlike a Maltese cross  done in yellow on his forehead. Metipom carried a musket, as did several others. Next to the warriors went the older boys, armed  with bows, and behind them were the men  past the fighting age and the squaws, maidens  and children. Only occasionally did one of the men or boys carry any burden, and then  it was like to be some treasured object like  an iron kettle or a bundle of pelts. It was the women and maidens, and even the children, who bore the household things: skins  and mats for wigwams, cooking-utensils,  food supplies, babies, and a general miscellany of belongings too precious to leave behind. Used to such form of drudgery, however, the squaws kept pace with the men and asked no favor.

David found that he was to be allowed no chance of escape, for two painted and oil-