brought no sign of life, and his body was lowered slowly back again by the
agonized father, who sat down and dropped his head on his son's breast.

Mr. Mann brought water and wet the boy's lips and bathed his brow. He then
placed his hand over the boy's heart and held it there. There was a long
silence. The old chief watched the teacher's hand. He seemed waiting for a
word of hope; but Mr. Mann did not speak.

The old chief lifted his head at last, and said; appealingly:

"Boston tilicum, you do not know how I feel! You do not know--the birds
know--_you_ do not know!"

The teacher rubbed the boy's breast and arms, and said:

"He will revive."

"What, Boston tilicum?"

"He will _live_."

"My boy?"

"Yes."

The dark face brightened. The old man clasped the boy's hand and drew it
to his breast. The children attempted to brush the earth out of the young
hero's dark, matted hair, but the old chief said, mysteriously:

"No touch him! he is mine."

At last a convulsive movement passed over the boy's body. The teacher
again pressed his hand on the heart of his pupil, and he quickly
exclaimed: "It beats."

The fiery sun gleamed from the snowy mountains. There were cool murmurs of
winds in the trees, and they sent forth a resinous odor into the air. The
balm dropped down like a messenger of healing.

Presently the boy's eyes opened and gazed steadily into the blue air.

The eagles were wheeling about the trees. The boy watched them, as though
nothing had passed. They were making narrowing circles, and at last each
alighted on the new nest beside their young.

He turned his face slowly toward his father.

"Saved!" he said. "They are happy. I fell. Let's go."

He rose up. As he did so the male eagle rose from his nest and, uttering a
glad scream, wheeled in the sky and made his way through the crimson haze
toward the fishing grounds of the lower Columbia.

The chief's eye followed him for a time; then the old man turned a happy
face on the schoolmaster and children and said:

"I know how he feels--the Manitou overhead--he made the hearts of all;
yours--the birds--mine. He is glad!"

There was something beautiful and pathetic in the old chief's sense of the
common heart and feeling of all conscious beings. The very eagles seemed
to understand it; and Master Mann, as he turned away from the school-house
that day, said to Gretchen:

"I myself am being taught. I am glad to learn all this large life. I hope