the mere combination of unmeaning syllables found small favour.
They named people according to some striking quality or characteristic.
Hence our missionary had been long known among the red men of the West
as the Preacher, and, being quite satisfied with that name, he accepted
it without making any attempt to bamboozle the children of the woods and
prairies with his real name, which was--and is--a matter of no
importance whatever. Tim likewise, being short of stature, though very
much the reverse of weak or diminutive, had accepted the name of "Little
Tim" with a good grace, and made mention of no other; his son naturally
becoming "Big Tim" when he outgrew his father.

A search expedition having been quickly organised, it left the little
fortress at once, and defiled into the thick woods, led by Whitewing and
Big Tim.

In order that the reader may fully understand the cause of Little Tim's
absence, we will take the liberty of pushing on in advance of the search
party, and explain a few matters as we go.

It has already been shown that our little hunter possessed a natural
ingenuity of mind. This quality had, indeed, been noticeable when he
was a boy, but it did not develop largely till he became a man. As he
grew older his natural ingenuity seemed to become increasingly active,
until his thirst for improving on mechanical contrivances and devising
something new became almost a passion. Hence he was perpetually
occupied in scheming to improve--as he was wont to say--the material
condition of the human race, as well as the mental.

Among other things, he improved the traps of his Indian friends, and
also their dwellings. He invented new traps, and, as we have seen, new
methods of defending dwellings, as well as of escaping when defence
failed. His name, of course, became well known in the Indian country,
and as some of his contrivances proved to be eminently useful, he was
regarded far and near as a great medicine-man, who could do whatever he
set his mind to. Without laying claim to such unlimited powers, Little
Tim was quite content to leave the question of his capacity to scheme
and invent as much a matter of uncertainty in the minds of his red
friends as it was in his own mind.

One day there came to the Indian village, in which he dwelt at the time
with his still pretty though matronly wife Brighteyes, one of the agents
of a man whose business it was to collect wild animals for the
menageries of the Unit