"When the Chief, after warning the hunter, recognized the futility of his efforts, a sudden change took place in him. His features reassumed their old stoicism; a sad smile played round his mocking lips, and he sank to the ground, muttering, in a hollow voice-- "The Wacondah would not permit it." But Tranquil did not accept the position with the same resignation and fatalism, for he belonged to that race of energetic men whose powerful character causes them to struggle to their dying breath. When he saw that the Redskin, with the fatalism peculiar to his race, gave up the contest for life, he resolved to make a supreme effort, and attempt impossibilities. About twenty yards in front of the spot where the hunter had established his bivouac, were several trees lying on the ground, dead, and, as it were, piled on each other; then, behind this species of breastwork a clump of five or six oaks grew, isolated from all the rest, and formed a sort of oasis in the midst of the sand on the river bank. "Quick!" the hunter shouted. "Quoniam, pick up as much dead wood as you can find, and come here. Chief, do the same." The two men obeyed without comprehending, but reassured by their comrade's coolness. In a few minutes a considerable pile of dead wood was piled over the fallen oaks. "Good!" the hunter exclaimed; "By Heaven! All is not lost yet--take courage!" Then, carrying to this improvised bonfire the remains of the fire he had lit at his bivouac, to defeat the night cold, he enlarged the flames with resinous matters, and in less than five minutes a large column rose whirling to the clouds, and soon formed a dense curtain more than ten yards in width. "Back! back!" the hunter then shouted,--"follow me." Black-deer and Quoniam dashed after him. The Canadian did not go far; on reaching the clump of trees we have alluded to, he clambered up the largest with unparalleled skill and agility, and soon he and his comrades found themselves perched a height of fifty feet in the air, comfortably lodged on strong branches, and completely concealed by the foliage. "There," the Canadian said, with the utmost coolness, "this is our last resource; so soon as the column appears, fire at the leaders; if the flash startles the buffaloes, we are saved; if not, we shall only have death to await. But, at any rate, we shall have done all that was humanly possible to save our lives." The fire kindled by the hunter had assumed gigantic proportions; it had extended from tree to tree, lighting up the grass and shrubs, and though too remote from the forest to kindle it, it soon formed a curtain of flames nearly a quarter of a mile in length, whose reddish gleam tinged the sky for a long distance, and gave the landscape a character of striking and savage grandeur. From the spots where the hunters had sought shelter they commanded this ocean of flame, which could not reach them, and completely hovered over its furnace.