I have described three characteristic groups that struck me on glancing over the camp ground. There were individuals belonging to neither, and others partaking of the character of one or all. There were Frenchmen, Canadian voyageurs, strays of the north-west company, wearing white capotes, and chatting, dancing, and singing their boat-songs with all the _esprit_ of their race. There were pueblos, Indios manzos, clad in their ungraceful tilmas, and rather serving than associating with those around them. There were mulattoes, too, and negroes of a jetty blackness from the plantations of Louisiana, who had exchanged for this free, roving life the twisted "cow-skin" of the overseer. There were tattered uniforms showing the deserters who had wandered from some frontier post into this remote region. There were Kanakas from the Sandwich Isles, who had crossed the deserts from California. There were men apparently of every hue and clime and tongue here assembled, drawn together by the accidents of life, by the instinct of adventure--all more or less strange individuals of the strangest band it has ever been my lot to witness: the band of the Scalp-Hunters! CHAPTER TWENTY. SHARP-SHOOTING. I had returned to my blanket, and was about to stretch myself upon it, when the whoop of a gruya drew my attention. Looking up, I saw one of these birds flying towards the camp. It was coming through a break in the trees that opened from the river. It flew low, and tempted a shot with its broad wings, and slow, lazy flight. A report rang upon the air. One of the Mexicans had fired his escopette; but the bird flew on, plying its wings with more energy, as if to bear itself out of reach. There was a laugh from the trappers, and a voice cried out-- "Yur fool! D'yur think 'ee kud hit a spread blanket wi' that beetle-shaped blunderbox? Pish!" I turned to see who had delivered this odd speech. Two men were poising their rifles, bringing them to bear upon the bird. One was the young hunter whom I have described. The other was an Indian whom I had not seen before. The cracks were simultaneous; and the crane, dropping its long neck, came whirling down among the trees, where it caught upon a high branch, and remained. From their position neither party knew that the other had fired. A tent was between them, and the two reports had seemed as one. A trapper cried out-- "Well done, Garey! Lord help the thing that's afore old Killbar's muzzle when you squints through her hind-sights." The Indian just then stepped round the tent. Hearing this side speech, and perceiving the smoke still oozing from the muzzle of the young hunter's gun, he turned to the latter with the interrogation-- "Did you fire, sir?" This was said in well-accentuated and most un-Indianlike English, which would have drawn my attention to the man had not his singularly-imposing appearance riveted me already. "Who is he?" I inquired from one near me.