This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

er rascal than his fellows, and rather gloried in recounting his deeds of lawlessness, answered, with an evil leer:

"Oh, we built them a rousing fire, and bid them good-night."

"Miserable wretch!" cried the woman; "you have burned them up, then."

"Not so fast, Mother Minotte," said the man; "that is not so easy a thing to do. I'll warrant you that they have crawled out, with nothing more than a good singeing. How tender you are of the red-skins, all at once!"

"I have no love for the race," she answered, with a dark look; "but if you have done this violence, it will soon be noised abroad, and the result will be that we shall have to quit our camp here in the woods, and tramp."

"Oh, not so bad as that, mother," the three men said, in a breath. "It is not much to light an Indian wigwam; the red-skins will crawl off to another one, somewhere; there are half a score