The roll of the drum which had attracted but little
attention on the steamer, assumed a deeper tone, as it was re-echoed
from the adjoining woods, and now distinctly announced, from time to
time, the placing of sentinels, the hour for supper, and other offices
of a clock, in civil life. The French population evinced, by their
countenances and gestures, as they clustered round, a manifest
satisfaction at the movement; the groups of Indians had gazed in a sort
of silent wonder at the pageant; they seemed, by a certain air of
secrecy and suspicion, to think it boded some evil to their long
supremacy in the land. Night imperceptibly threw her dark mantle over
the scene; the gazers, group by group, went to their lodges, and finally
the sharp roll of the tattoo bid every one within the camp to his tent.
Captain Alexander R. Thompson, who had claimed the commandant as his
guest, invited me also to spend the night in his tent. We could plainly
hear the deep murmur of the falls, after we lay down to rest, and also
the monotonous thump of the distant Indian _wabeno_ drum.
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