It came from the tree where the others had been sitting, or at least from that direction.
To the Indian the crow is a bird of ill omen.

Its discordant voice is, next to the cry of the owl, regarded as the most dismal forewarning.
The use of its plumage in magic is strongly condemned.

Was it not strange that those harbingers of misfortune so persistently followed him, and that their repulsive croaking always interrupted his thoughts?
Topanashka resolved to make good on the spot what he had omitted, and ere he moved, to pray.
In place of the formula which the warrior recites when he is on the track of an enemy, Topanashka selected another one, spoken upon entering dangerous ground where enemies may be lurking.

It seemed to him that the latter was better adapted to the occasion, since he was unarmed and therefore unable to fight in case of necessity.

He still carried with him the same fetich, a rude alabaster figure of the panther, which we saw dangling from his necklace on the day he went to visit the tapop.
But the necklace he had left at home this time, and he carried the amulet in a leather satchel concealed under his wrap.