As for the rest, it was the deep, imposing quiet of a desert.
But to those who so well knew how much was brooding beneath this mantle of stillness and night, it was a scene of high and wild excitement.
Their anxiety gradually increased, as minute after minute passed away, and not the smallest sound of life arose out of the calm and darkness which enveloped the brake.

The breathing of Paul grew louder and deeper, and more than once Ellen trembled at she knew not what, as she felt the quivering of his active frame, while she leaned dependently on his arm for support.
The shallow honesty, as well as the besetting infirmity of Weucha, have already been exhibited.

The reader, therefore, will not be surprised to learn that he was the first to forget the regulations he had himself imposed.

It was at the precise moment when we left Mahtoree yielding to his nearly ungovernable delight, as he surveyed the number and quality of Ishmael's beasts of burden, that the man he had selected to watch his captives chose to indulge in the malignant pleasure of tormenting those it was his duty to protect.

Bending his head nigh the ear of the trapper, the savage rather muttered than whispered-- "If the Tetons lose their great chief by the hands of the Long-knives[*], old shall die as well as young!" [*] The whites are so called by the Indians, from their swords.
"Life is the gift of the Wahcondah," was the unmoved reply.