was not full grown save in his heart. He could go and not be seen or heard. He was the adder, which creeps in the grass, and none think him near till he strikes; not the rattlesnake, which makes a great noise to let you know he is coming.

"He came back, and told us that which made us weep. He told us, there were some strange men a little way from the camp of the Walkullas, whose faces were white, and who did not wear skins. He told us, their wigwams were white as the snow which falls on the Backbone of the Great Spirit,* were flat at the top, and moved with the wind like the reeds on the bank of a river; that they did not talk like the Walkullas, but spoke a strange tongue, the like of which he had never heard before. Many of our warriors would have turned back to their own lands; the Flying Squirrel said it was not cowardice to do so. But the Mad Buffalo never turns on his heel till he has tasted of the blood of his foes. And the Young Eagle said, he had eaten the bitter root, and put on the new moccasins, and had been made a man, and his father and the old warriors would cry shame on him, if he took no scalp. Both he and the Mad Buffalo said, they would go and attack the Walkullas and their allies alone. But the young warriors said, they would also go to the battle, and fight with a great heart, as their fathers had done. And then the Shawanos rushed upon their foes.

"The Walkullas fell like rain before us. It was a fire among the rushes. We went upon them when they were unprepared, when they were as children, and for a while the Great Spirit gave them into our hands. But a power rose against us which we could not withstand. The strange men came upon us, armed with thunder and lightning. Why delays my tongue to tell its story? Fathers, your sons have fallen like the leaves of the tree. Warriors, the young sprouts which shot up from the roots of the withered oaks, have perished. The young men of our nation lie food for the eagle and the wild-cat, by the arm of the Great Lake.

"Fathers, the bolt from the stranger's thunder entered my flesh, but I did not fly. These six scalps I tore from the Walkullas, but this from one who had not the Indian's hair. Have I done well?"

The head-chief and the counsellors answered, he had done well; but Chenos answered, “No. You went into the Walkullas' camp," said he, "when the tribe were feasting to the Great Spirit, and you disturbed the sacrifice, and wickedly mixed human blood with it. Therefore this evil has come upon us, for the Great Spirit is very angry."

*The Indian name for the Alleghany mountains.

The head-chief and the counsellors asked Chenos, what must be done to appease the Master of Breath.

Chenos answered; "The Mad Buffalo, with the morning, will offer to him that which he holds dearest."

The Mad Buffalo looked fiercely on the priest, and said, "The Mad Buffalo fears the Great Spirit; but he will offer none of his kin, neither his father, nor his mother, nor the children of his father; but he will kill a deer, and, with the morning, it shall be burned to the Great Spirit."

Chenos said to him; "You have told the council how the battle was fought, and who fell; you have showed the spent quiver and the seven scalps, one of which has shining hair, but you have not spoken of your prisoner. The Great Spirit keeps nothing hid from his priests, and Chenos is one. He has told him you have a prisoner, one with tender feet and a little heart.”

"Let any one say the Mad Buffalo ever lied," said the headwarrior. "He never spoke but truth. He has a prisoner, taken from the strange camp; it is a woman. And as soon as I have

built my house, and gathered in my crop, and hunted and brought home my meat, she shall live with me, and become the mother of my children."

up

"Where is she?" asked the head-chief.

"She sits on the bank of the river, at the bend where we dug the bones of the great beast, beneath the tree which the Great Spirit struck with his lightning. I placed her there, because the spot is sacred, and none dare disturb her. The Mad Buffalo will go and fetch her to the council. She is fearful as the young deer, and weeps like a child for its mother. I go to bring her to the fire."

Soon he returned, and brought with him a woman, who hid her face in a cloth whiter than the clouds. The head-chief bade her, by signs, to throw the covering from her face, and stand forth before the council. She did so; but she shook like a reed, and tears ran down her cheek, though the head-warrior kept at her side, and bade her with his eyes fear nothing. The Indians sat as though their tongues were frozen, they were so much taken with the strange woman. Well might they be. Why? Was she beautiful? Go forth to the forest when white flowers clothe it; look at the tall maize when it waves with the wind, and ask if they are beautiful. Her skin was white as the snow of the far mountains, save upon her cheek, where it was red, and not such red as the Indian paints when he goes to war, but such as the Master of Life gives to the flower which blooms among thorns. Her eyes shone like the star which guides the

Indian hunter through wild woods to his home. Her hair curled over her head like wild vines around a tree, and hung upon her brow in clusters like bunches of grapes. Her step was like that of a deer when he is scared a little. The Great Spirit never made any thing so beautiful, not even the sun, nor the stars, nor the clouds.

The Mad Buffalo said to the council; "This is my prisoner. I fought hard for her. Three stood at her side; where are they now? I bore her away in my arms, for fear had overcome her; and when night came, I wrapped skins around her, and laid the leafy branches of trees over her to keep off the cold, and kindled fire, and watched by her till the sun rose; and gave all my food to her, lest she should be hungry; for I love her. Who will say that she shall not live with the Mad Buffalo, and be the mother of his children?"

Then the Old Eagle got up, but he could not walk strong, for he was the oldest man of his tribe. He went to the woman, and laid his hands on her head, and wept. The other warriors, who had lost their sons or kindred in the war with the Walkullas, did the same, shouting and weeping very loud. The women also wept, but they did not come near the prisoner.

"Where is the Young Eagle?" asked the Old Eagle, of the Mad Buffalo. The other warriors, in like manner, asked for their kindred, who had been killed.

"Fathers, they are dead," said the head-warrior; "the Mad Buffalo has said they are dead, and he never lies."

"We must have revenge," they all cried. Then they began to sing a very mournful song, still weeping. The Mad Buffale offered them the pipe of peace, but they would not take it.

Where are our sons

SONG.

Who went to drink the blood of their foes?
Who went forth to war and slaughter,

Armed with tough bows and sharp arrows;

Who carried long spears, and were nimble of foot
As the swift buck, and feared nothing but shame;
Who crossed deep rivers, and swam lakes,

And went to war against the Walkullas.

Ask the eagle, he can tell you;

He

says, My beak is red as the red leaf,

And the blood of the slain of your land has dyed it."
Ask the tiger if he is hungry?

"No," he shall say; "I have been at a feast."

What has he in his mouth?

Look! it is the arm of the Shawanos warrior!

Why do the old men weep?

And our women, and our daughters, and our little ones?

Is it for the warriors who went forth to battle?

Is it for them who went forth in glory,

And fell like the leaves of a tree in autumn ?

Is it for them?

What doth the Indian love? Revenge.
What doth he fight for? Revenge.
What doth he pray for? Revenge.
It is sweet as the meat of a young bear;
For this he goes hungry, roaming the desert,
Living on berries, or chewing the rough bark
Of the oak, and drinking the slimy pool.
Revenged we must be.

Behold the victim!

Beautiful she is as the stars,

Or the trees with white flowers.*

Let us give her to the Great Spirit;

Let us make a fire, and offer her for our sons,
That we may go to war against the Walkullas,
And revenge us for our sons.

When the strange woman saw them weeping and singing so mournfully, she crept close to the head-warrior, and stood under his arm. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she often looked up to the house of the Great Spirit, and talked, but none could understand her save Chenos, who said she was praying to her god. All the time the Old Eagle, and the other warriors who had lost their sons, were begging very hard that she should be sacrificed to the Master of Breath. But Chenos stood up, and said;

"Brothers and warriors! Our sons did very wrong when they broke in upon the sacred dance the Walkullas made to their god, upon the coming in of the new corn, and he lent his thunder to the strange warriors, and they killed ours easily. Let us not draw down his anger further upon us by doing, we know not what. It may be, if we offer this woman upon his fire, he will himself come with his thunder, and strike us as he did the sacred tree, and we shall all die. Let the beautiful woman remain this night in the wigwam of the council, covered with skins, and let none disturb her. To-morrow we will offer a sacrifice of deer's flesh to the Great Spirit, and if he will give her to the raging fire, and the torments of the avengers, he will say so in his song. If he do not speak then, it shall be done to her as the Old Eagle and his brothers have said."

*The magnolia.

The head-warrior said; "Chenos has spoken well; wisdom is is in his words. Make for the strange woman a soft bed of skins, and treat her kindly, for it may be she is the daughter of the Great Spirit."

Then the Indians all returned to their wigwams, and went to sleep, save the Mad Buffalo, who fearing for the life of his prisoner, laid himself down at the door of the wigwam, and watched.

When morning came, the head-warrior went to the forest, and killed a deer, fat and proper for an offering. He brought it to Chenos, who prepared it for a sacrifice. This was the song they sang while the deer's flesh lay on the fire.

We have built the fire,

SONG.

The deer we have killed,

The skin and the horns are parted from the flesh,
The flesh is laid on the burning coals;

The sweetness thereof goes up in the smoke,

Wilt thou come, Master of Life, and claim thine own?

Wilt thou come, Great Spirit of our fathers,

And say if we may harbor revenge, and not anger thee?
Shall we plant the stake, and bind the fair one?

The beautiful maid with her hair like bunches of grapes,
And her eyes like the blue sky,

And her skin white as the blossoms of the forest tree,
And her voice as the music of a little stream;

Shall she be torn with sharp thorns,

And burned in fiery flames?

"Let us listen," said Chenos, stopping the warriors in their dance. "Let us see if the Great Spirit hears us."

They listened, but could not hear him singing. Chenos asked him why he would not speak, but he did not answer. Then they sung again.

Shall the flame we have kindled expire?

Shall the sacrifice embers go out?

Shall the maiden go free from the fire?
Shall the voice of revenge wake no shout?
We ask that our feet may be strong
In the way thou wouldst have us to go;
Let thy voice then be heard in a song,

That thy will, and our task we may know.

"Hush," said Chenos; "I hear him speaking." They stopped, and Chenos went close to the fire, and talked with his master, but nobody saw with whom he talked.

Spirit say? asked the head-chief.

"What does the Great