Those Indians were not at all like any we had seen before; their
clothing, what little there was of it, consisted mostly of rabbit
skins sewed together to form cloaks. To my mind they resembled more the
Negroes than the Indians; but father said, save for their inclination
to steal anything upon which they could lay their hands, that we need
have no fear whatever regarding them, because they were known to be
peaceable. The men were armed only with bows and arrows and seemed to
have great fear of a gun or a pistol.
The visitors had with them a quantity of dried meat and roots which
they wanted to trade with us for bread or for blankets; but our store
of provisions was not so low that we would willingly eat what those
creatures had prepared.
They lingered around the encampment, however, coming as closely to the
wagons as our people would permit, and we girls and boys were told to
keep careful watch lest they steal all our possessions.
Just at sunset, one of the men who was standing guard over the cows
shouted that a wild beast was creeping up on us from a thicket a short
distance away, to the right of where father's wagon stood.
Looking up quickly, I saw a huge panther crawling, as you might say,
much as a cat approaches a mouse, and it seemed to me that he was
making ready to spring directly upon us girls.
[Illustration]
Ellen and I clambered shrieking into the wagon, where we hid our heads
in a feather bed like the silly children we were, and straightway there
ensued the greatest tumult that can be imagined, as our hunters strove
to kill the ferocious animal.
It is, perhaps, needless for me to say that the panther escaped,
although Eben Jordan claimed it would have been possible for him to
kill the beast, had he not been hampered by frightened girls and men.