In another moment a long, dismal howl floated over the plains.

There was a mystery about the dog's conduct which, coupled with his melancholy cry, struck the travellers with a superstitious feeling of dread, as they sat looking at each other in surprise.
"Come, let's clear it up," cried Joe Blunt, shaking the reins of his steed, and galloping forward.

A few strides brought them to the other side of the knoll, where, scattered upon the torn and bloody turf, they discovered the scalped and mangled remains of about twenty or thirty human beings.

Their skulls had been cleft by the tomahawk and their breasts pierced by the scalping-knife, and from the position in which many of them lay it was evident that they had been slain while asleep.
Joe's brow flushed and his lips became tightly compressed as he muttered between his set teeth, "Their skins are white." A short examination sufficed to show that the men who had thus been barbarously murdered while they slept had been a band of trappers or hunters, but what their errand had been, or whence they came, they could not discover.
Everything of value had been carried off, and all the scalps had been taken.

Most of the bodies, although much mutilated, lay in a posture that led our hunters to believe they had been killed while asleep; but one or two were cut almost to pieces, and from the blood-bespattered and trampled sward around, it seemed as if they had struggled long and fiercely for life.