University of Virginia Library

5. V.

“The next day came the commencement of the
great hunt, and the warriors were up betimes and
active. Stations were chosen, the keepers of
which, converging to a centre, were to hem in

the wild animal on whose tracks they were going.
The wolves were known to be in a hollow of the
hills near Charashilactay, which had but one
outlet; and points of close approximation across
this outlet were the stations of honor; for, goaded
by the hunters to this passage, and failing of
egress in any other, the wolf, it was well known,
would be then dangerous in the extreme. Well
calculated to provoke into greater activity the jealousies
between the Occonies and the Green Birds,
was the assignment made by Moitoy, the chief, of
the more dangerous of these stations to these two
clans. They now stood alongside of one another,
and the action of the two promised to be
joint and corresponsive. Such an appointment, in
the close encounter with the wolf, necessarily promised
to bring the two parties into immediate contact;
and such was the event. As the day advanced,
and the hunters, contracting their circles,
brought the different bands of wolves into one,
and pressed upon them to the more obvious and
indeed the only outlet, the badges of the Green
Bird and the Brown Viper — the one consisting
of the stuffed skin and plumage of the Carolina
parrot, and the other the attenuated viper, filled
out with moss, and winding, with erect head,
around the pole, to the top of which it was stuck
— were at one moment, in the indiscriminate hunt,
almost mingled over the heads of the two parties.
Such a sight was pleasant to neither, and would,
at another time, of a certainty, have brought
about a squabble. As it was, the Occonies drove
their badge-carrier from one to the other end of
their ranks, thus studiously avoiding the chance
of another collision between the viper so adored,
and the green bird so detested. The pride of the
Estatoees was exceedingly aroused at this exhibition
of impertinence, and though a quiet people
enough, they began to think that forbearance had
been misplaced in their relations with their presuming
and hostile neighbors. Had it not been
for Nagoochie, who had his own reasons for suffering
yet more, the Green Birds would certainly
have plucked out the eyes of the Brown Vipers,
or tried very hard to do it; but the exhortations
to peace of the young warrior, and the near
neighborhood of the wolf, quelled any open show
of the violence they meditated; but, Indian-like,
they determined to wait for the moment of greatest
quiet, as that most fitted for taking away a few
scalps from the Occony. With a muttered curse,
and a contemptuous slap of the hand upon their
thighs, the more furious among the Estatoees satisfied
their present anger, and then addressed
themselves more directly to the business before
them.

“The wolves, goaded to desperation by the
sound of hunters strewn all over the hills around
them, were now, snapping and snarling, and with
eyes that flashed with a terrible anger, descending
the narrow gully towards the outlet held by the
two rival tribes. A united action was therefore
demanded of those who, for a long time past, had
been conscious of no feeling or movement in common.
But here they had no choice — no time,
indeed, to think. The fierce wolves were upon
them, doubly furious at finding the only passage
stuck full of enemies. Well and manfully did
the hunters stand and seek the encounter with the
infuriated beasts. The knife and the hatchet, that
day, in the hand of Occony and Estato, did fearful
execution. The Brown Vipers fought nobly,
and with their ancient reputation. But the Green
Birds were the hunters, after all; and they were
now stimulated into double adventure and effort,
by an honorable ambition to make up for all deficiencies
of number by extra valor, and the careful
exercise of all that skill in the arts of hunting
for which they have always been the most renowned
of the tribes of Cherokee. As, one by
one, a fearful train, the wolves wound into sight

along this or that crag of the gully, arrow after
arrow told fearfully upon them, for there were no
marksmen like the Estatoees. Nor did they stop
at this weapon. The young Nagoochie, more
than ever prompted to such enterprise, led the
way; and dashing into the very path of the teeth-gnashing
and claw-rending enemy, he grappled
in desperate fight the first that offered himself,
and as the wide jaws of his hairy foe opened upon
him, with a fearful plunge at his side, adroitly
leaping to the right, he thrust a pointed stick
down, deep, as far as he could send it, into the
monster's throat, then pressing back upon him,
with the rapidity of an arrow, in spite of all his
fearful writhings he pinned him to the ground,
while his knife, in a moment after, played fatally
in his heart. Another came, and in a second, his
hatchet cleft and crunched deep into the skull of
the hairy brute, leaving him senseless, without
need of a second stroke. There was no rivalling
deeds of valour so desperate as this; and with increased
bitterness of soul did Cheochee and his
followers hate in proportion as they admired.
They saw the day close, and heard the signal
calling them to the presence of the great chief
Moitoy, conscious, though superior in numbers,
they could not at all compare in skill and success
with the long-despised, but now thoroughly-hated
Estatoees.

“And still more great the vexation, still more
deadly the hate, when the prize was bestowed by
the hand of Moitoy, the great military chief of
Cherokee —when, calling around him the tribes,
and carefully counting the number of their several
spoils, consisting of the skins of the wolves that
had been slain, it was found that of these the
greater number, in proportion to their force, had
fallen victims to the superior skill or superior daring
of the people of the Green Bird. And who
had been their leader? the rambling Nagoochie
— the young hunter who had broken his leg
among the crags of Occony, and, in the same
adventure, no longer considered luckless, had won
the young heart of the beautiful Jocassée.

“They bore the young and successful warrior
into the centre of the ring, and before the great
Moitoy. He stood up in the presence of the assembled
multitude, a brave and fearless, and fine
looking Cherokee. At the signal of the chief,
the young maidens gathered into a group, and
sung around him a song of compliment and approval,
which was just as much as to say, — `Ask,
and you shall have.' He did ask; and before
the people of the Brown Viper could so far recover

from their surprise as to interfere, or well
comprehend the transaction, the bold Nagoochie
had led the then happy Jocassée into the presence
of Moitoy and the multitude, and had claimed the
girl of Occony to fill the green lodge of the Estato
hunter.