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struck me, however, as somewhat singular, to see this animal making, by a circuitous passage, for a thick coppice immediately behind my post. I therefore kept my eye constantly fixed upon it, and as it was now within a few yards of the coppice, hesitated whether I should not fire. My comrades, thought I, would laugh at me for alarming them by shooting a pig. I had almost resolved to let it alone, when, just as it approached the thicket, I thought I observed it give an unusual spring. I no longer hesitated ; I took my aim : discharged my piece ; and the animal was instantly stretched before me with a groan which I conceived to be that of a human creature. I went up to it, and judge my astonishment, when I found that I had killed an Indian. He had enveloped himself with the skin of one of those wild hogs so artfully and completely; his hands and feet were so entirely concealed in it, and his gait and appearance so exactly correspondent to that of the animal, that, imperfectly as they were always seen through the trees and jungles, the disguise could not be penetrated at a distance, and scarcely be discovered upon the nearest aspect. He was armed with a dagger and a tomahawk.”
Such was the substance of this man’s relation. The cause of the disappearance of the other sentinels was now apparent. The Indians, sheltered in this disguise, secreted themselves in the coppice; watched the moment when they could throw it off ; burst upon the sentinels without previous alarm, and too quick to give them art opportunity to discharge their pieces, either stabbed or scalped them, and bore their bodies away, which they concealed at some distance among the leaves. The Americans gave them rewards for every scalp of an enemy which they brought. Whatever circumstances of wonder may appear in the present relation, there are many now alive who can attest its authenticity.
