riends, would listen with unflagging
patience, and profound solemnity, to her lover's soliloquies in
reference to things past, present, and to come.

One of the peculiarities of Whitewing was that he did not treat women as
mere slaves or inferior creatures. His own mother, a wrinkled, brown
old thing resembling a piece of singed shoe-leather, he loved with a
tenderness not usual in North American Indians, some tribes of whom have
a tendency to forsake their aged ones, and leave them to perish rather
than be burdened with them. Whitewing also thought that his betrothed
was fit to hold intellectual converse with him, in which idea he was not
far wrong.

At the time we introduce him to the reader he was on a visit to the
Indian camp of Lightheart's tribe in Clearvale, for the purpose of
claiming his bride. His own tribe, of which the celebrated old warrior
Bald Eagle was chief, dwelt in a valley at a considerable distance from
the camp referred to.

There were two other visitors at the Indian camp at that time. One was
a Wesleyan missionary who had penetrated to that remote region with a
longing desire to carry the glad tidings of salvation in Jesus to the
red men of the prairie. The other was a nondescript little white
trapper, who may be aptly described as a mass of contradictions. He was
small in stature, but amazingly strong; ugly, one-eyed, scarred in the
face, and misshapen; yet wonderfully attractive, because of a sweet
smile, a hearty manner, and a kindly disposition. With the courage of
the lion, Little Tim, as he was styled, combined the agility of the
monkey and the laziness of the sloth. Strange to say, Tim and Whitewing
were bosom friends, although they differed in opinion on most things.

"The white man speaks again about Manitou to-day," said the Indian,
referring to the missionary's intention to preach, as he and Little Tim
concluded their midday meal in the wigwam that had been allotted to
them.

"It's little I cares for that," replied Tim curtly, as he lighted the
pipe with which he always wound up every meal.

Of course both men spoke in the Indian language, but that being probably
unknown to the reader, we will try to convey in English as nearly as
possible the slightly poetical tone of the one and the rough Backwoods'
style of the other.

"It seems strange to me," returned the Indian, "that my white brother
thinks and cares so little about his Manitou. He thinks much of his
gun, and h