replenishing of the fire on the chimneyless hearth in the centre of the
floor afforded the only comment on the passage of time. Its glow gave to
view the red walls; the curious designs of the painted interior of the
buffalo hides stretched upon them, by way of decoration; the cane divans
or couches that were contrived to run all around the circular apartment,
and on which were spread skins of bear and panther and wolves, covering
even the heads of the slumbering members of the household, for the
Cherokees slept away much of the tedious winter weather.

The fire would show, too, how gayly bedight and feather-crested was
Amoyah, wearing a choice garb of furs;--often, so great was his vanity,
his face was elaborately painted as if for some splendid festive
occasion, a dance or the ball-play, instead of merely to impress with
his magnificence this simple domestic circle. Tus-ka-sah dated the
events that followed from one night when this facial decoration of his
rival was even more fantastic than usual. Like a fish was one side of
the young Cherokee's profile; the other in glaring daubs of white and
black and red craftily represented the head of a woodpecker. The effect
in front was the face of a nondescript monster, that only a gleeful
laughing eye, and now and then a flash of narrow white teeth, identified
as the jovial Amoyah, the Pigeon of Ioco.

The snow lay on the ground without, he said as he shook a wreath of it
from a fold of his fur and it fell hissing among the coals. The shadows
were long, he told them, for the moon was up and the world was dimly
white and duskily blue. The wind was abroad, and indeed they could hear
the swirl of its invisible wings as it swooped past; the boughs of the
trees clashed together and ice was in the Tennessee River. The winter
had come, he declared.