These thoughts, and others even more cruel, passed through the mind of the youth, as he flew along the forest path. When he had gained the spring at the foot of the beech tree, he paused a moment, drew his breath, and took a draught of the cold water. The moon showed herself through rifted clouds, and, turning his gaze to the hill above him, he missed the cone like summit of the wigwam. All looked blank and desolate, while a foul stench of burning pervaded the air around. He went up the hill with slackened steps, dreading the sight which must soon meet his gaze.
A heap of black, smoking ruins, in which the rain had not entirely quenched the flames, was all that he found. It was vain to search there with the expectation of finding a living creature, brute or human. Life must have long since departed from whatever lay buried there. Nor could the young man at present search for the dead amid the fire, the smoke and the suffocating odors.
