--_Life of G. Copway, Missionary, written by
himself._] I have heard my father say,--and he knows a great deal about
these people,--that their chiefs are very strict in punishing any strangers
that they find killing game on their bounds uninvited. They are both
merciless and treacherous when angered, and we could not even speak to them
in their own language, to explain by what chance we came here."
This was very prudent of Louis, uncommonly so, for one who was naturally
rash and headstrong, but unfortunately Hector was inflexible and wilful:
when once he had made up his mind upon any point, he had too good an
opinion of his own judgment to give it up. At last, he declared his
intention, rather than remain a slave to such cowardly fears as he now
deemed them, to go forth boldly, and endeavour to ascertain what the
Indians were about, how many there were of them, and what real danger was
to be apprehended from facing them.
"Depend upon it," he added, "cowards are never safer than brave men. The
Indians despise cowards, and would be more likely to kill us if they found
us cowering here in this hole like a parcel of wolf-cubs, than if we openly
faced them and showed that we neither feared them, nor cared for them.
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