"Se tue! Se tue!" "My sister, my sister!" cried the women, as one by
one they gazed upon the face of the departed; then kneeling down,
they took hold of the poor still warm hand, or raised the head to see
if life were indeed extinct; then as they found that it was truly so,
there arose within that lodge the loud, heart-piercing Indian wail,
which, once heard, can never be forgotten. Far, far through the
tangled wood it spread, and across the swift river; there is nothing
like that wail for pathos, for strange succession of unusual tones,
for expression of deep need--of the heart-sorrow of suffering
humanity!
In the meantime the chief actor in that sad tragedy had let the
instrument of his cruelty fall from his hand; it was immediately
seized by one of the Indians and flung into the river. Michel made no
resistance to this, albeit even at that moment it might have occurred
to him that being deprived of his gun, he was shorn of well nigh his
only means of subsistence. He turned to leave his tent, and with a
scared, wild look, slowly raised the blanket which hung at its
entrance; but he was not suffered to escape so easily: the men of the
surrounding camps were gathered close outside, and as with one
consent, they laid hold of the miserable culprit and pinned him to
the spot; then ensued a fierce Babel of tongues, each one urging his
own opinion as to the course of treatment befitting the occasion.
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