University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

The windy month had set in, the leaves were falling, and the light-footed
hunters of Catawba, set forth upon the chase. Little groups
went off in every direction, and before two weeks had elapsed
from the beginning of the campaign, the whole nation was broken
up into parties, each under the guidance of an individual warrior.
The course of the several hunting bands was taken according to
the tastes or habits of these leaders. Some of the Indians were
famous for their skill in hunting the otter, could swim as long
with head under water as himself, and be not far from his
haunches, when he emerged to breathe. These followed the
course of shallow waters and swamps, and thick, dense bays, in
which it was known that he found his favourite haunts. The bear
hunter pushed for the cane brakes and the bee trees; and woe
to the black bear whom he encountered with his paws full of
honeycomb, which he was unwilling to leave behind him. The
active warrior took his way towards the hills, seeking for the
brown wolf and the deer; and, if the truth were known, smiled
with wholesale contempt at the more timorous who desired less
adventurous triumphs. Many set forth in couples only, avoiding
with care all the clamorous of the tribe; and some few, the more
surly or successful—the inveterate bachelors of the nation—were
content to make their forward progress alone. The old men prepared
their traps and nets, the boys their blow guns, and followed
with the squaws slowly, according to the division made by the
hunters among themselves. They carried the blankets and bread

stuffs, and camped nightly in noted places, to which, according to
previous arrangement, the hunters might repair at evening and
bring their game. In this way, some of the tribes followed the
course of the Catawba, even to its source. Others darted off
towards the Pacolet and Broad rivers, and there were some, the
most daring and swift of foot, who made nothing of a journey to
the Tiger river, and the rolling mountains of Spartanburg.

There were two warriors who pursued this course. One of
them was named Conattee, and a braver man and more fortunate
hunter never lived. But he had a wife who was a greater scold
than Xantippe. She was the wonder and the terror of the tribe,
and quite as ugly as the one-eyed squaw of Tustenuggee, the
grey demon of Enoree. Her tongue was the signal for "slinking,"
among the bold hunters of Turkey-town; and when they
heard it, "now," said the young women, who sympathised, as all
proper young women will do, with the handsome husband of an
ugly wife, "now," said they, "we know that poor Conattee has
come home." The return of the husband, particularly if he
brought no game, was sure to be followed by a storm of that
"dry thunder," so well known, which never failed to be heard at
the farthest end of the village.

The companion of Conattee on the present expedition was named
Selonee—one of the handsomest lads in the whole nation. He
was tall and straight like a pine tree; had proved his skill and
courage in several expeditions against the Chowannee red sticks,
and had found no young warriors of the Cherokee, though he had
been on the war path against them and had stricken all their posts,
who could circumvent him in stratagem or conquer him in actual
blows. His renown as a hunter was not less great. He had put
to shame the best wolf-takers of the tribe, and the lodge of his
venerable father, Chifonti, was never without meat. There was
no good reason why Conattee, the married man, should be so intimate
with Selonee, the single—there was no particular sympathy
between the two; but, thrown together in sundry expeditions,
they had formed an intimacy, which, strange to say, was neither
denounced nor discouraged by the virago wife of the former. She
who approved of but few of her husband's movements, and still
fewer of his friends and fellowships, forbore all her reproaches

when Selonee was his companion. She was the meekest, gentlest,
sweetest tempered of all wives whenever the young hunter came
home with her husband; and he, poor man, was consequently,
never so well satisfied as when he brought Selonee with him. It
was on such occasions, only, that the poor Conattee could persuade
himself to regard Macourah as a tolerable personage. How he
came to marry such a creature—such a termagant, and so monstrous
ugly—was a mystery which none of the damsels of Catawba
could elucidate, though the subject was one on which, when
mending the young hunter's mocasins, they expended no small
quantity of conjecture. Conattee, we may be permitted to say,
was still quite popular among them, in spite of his bad taste, and
manifest unavailableness; possibly, for the very reason that his
wife was universally detested; and it will, perhaps, speak something
for their charity, if we pry no deeper into their motives, to
say that the wish was universal among them that the Opitchi Manneyto,
or Black Devil of their belief, would take the virago to
himself, and leave to the poor Conattee some reasonable hope of
being made happy by a more indulgent spouse.