After our endless journey, this country to which we had come seemed even more beautiful than New England. The stream itself was clear as glass, so that when we passed deep pools, we saw the black and white edging to the fins of the trout far below: the white and red spots on them: the backward movement of their eyes as they rolled them calculatingly at the shadow of the canoe.

The valley through which this river flowed was broad enough for ten rivers, and was laid out to natural terraces, rising and rising until they terminated, in the far distance, in a long chain of hills, pearly blue in the warm November haze.

The terraces, and the hills too, were wooded with maples, elms and birches in small clumps and groves, separated by rich meadows, so that both sides of the river had the look of a cultivated estate.

The chief town of the Saukies was built at a fork in the river. The houses stood on the second and third terraces above the river; and on the terraces above and below the houses were plantations of corn, beans, melons and pumpkins.

The houses were the size and shape of a New England barn built by a carpenter who had forgot the proper proportions for a barn.

They were too long, too low and too narrow; but they were built of hewn plank, covered with overlapping bark; and in front of the door of each house was a sort of porch where the occupants could sit in good weather, smoking their pipes and looking down on their fields and the river. All along the fronts of these houses were spears and poles, thrust upright in the ground, so that the place had a queer, bristly look.

When we came in sight of the settlement the whole town erupted Indians—pigeon-toed squaws, befeathered braves, stark-naked copper-skinned boys and girls, all joining in a discordant chorus of welcome underlain by the yapping of innumerable wolf-like dogs that gamboled among them.

When at last our canoe swerved in to the bank, the youngest and largest of our Indians, known to us as Tiny, stepped over the side to draw us ashore. He stepped on a rock, and his foot turned under him, so that he floundered and fell. At his fall a singular sound rose from those who watched us; and when he limped as he rose, the moan became almost a wail.

When I got out, and Sponge-belly had me by the arm, urging me up the slope, I was conscious of hands touching me: hands tapping and poking and feeling me. From shoulder to ankle I was kneaded and prodded. On both sides of us ran women, boys and children, stumbling and tumbling down: staring wide-eyed at us, regardless of where they placed their feet; and perpetually fondling us, as if to make sure we were flesh and blood.