Page:Life and Adventures of William Buckley.djvu/85

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62
LIFE OF BUCKLEY.

slightly clad Venuses, to be worse than others?—On their part, I repudiate the imputation.

The next morning our party started, fully armed for the combat, and with passions highly excited at the thought of the advantage taken of them by their cowardly assailants. After they were gone, we, who were left, buried the bodies of the children in the usual manner. After two days' absence, our fighting men returned, several of them severely wounded; but their revenge was satisfied, for they had killed two of their opponents.

The next place we went to was called Ballackillock, where we found a tribe already settled, if a few days' residence under sheets of bark and branches of trees, may be so called. Both parties were very friendly for a short time, and then there was a great fight, in which a young woman, about twenty years of age, was speared through the thigh. As she belonged to our tribe, she was brought into our huts, from whence it seemed, she had absconded with a man of the other party, without her parents' knowledge. The quarrel being over, and all quiet, the men went to the lake fishing, leaving the women to their usual occupation, and the poor girl by herself in one of the huts. The man she had eloped with knowing all this, went to her, and carried her off; so that when the tribe returned they discovered the flight of the fugitives, on whom they vowed vengeance. All went on as usual for a few days more, and then we shifted again, and for some time kept moving about, killing squirrels and opossums—the skins of both being very