one?" But no answer came to his voice of wailing. He
started for the edge of the woods, crying as he ran, "My cousin!" and
"Oh, my cousin!"

Hither and thither through the forest he sped with all his fleetness of
foot and quickness of spirit; and when at last he found that no voice
would answer him, he burst into tears, and sobbed aloud.

He returned to the fire, and sat down. He mused upon the absence of
Wassamo with a sorely-troubled heart. "He may have been playing me a
trick," he thought; but it was full time that the trick should be at an
end, and Wassamo returned not. The cousin cherished other hopes, but
they all died away in the morning light, when he found himself alone by
the hunting-fire.

"How shall I answer to his friends for Wassamo?" thought the cousin.
"Although," he said to himself, "his parents are my kindred, and they
are well assured that their son is my bosom-friend, will they receive
that belief in the place of him who is lost. No, no; they will say that
I have slain him, and they will require blood for blood. Oh! my cousin,
whither are you gone?"

He would have rested to restore his mind to its peace, but he could not
sleep; and, without further regard to net or canoe, he set off for the
village, running all the way.

As they saw him approaching at such speed and alone, they said, "Some
accident has happened."

When he had come into the village, he told them how Wassamo had
disappeared. He stated all the circumstances. He kept nothing to
himself. He declared all that he knew.

Some said, "He has killed him in the dark." Others said, "It is
impossible; they were like brothers; they would have fallen for each
other. It can not be."

At the cousin's request, many of the men visited the fish-fire. There
were no marks of blood. No hasty steps were there to show that any
conflict or struggle had occurred. Every leaf on every tree was in its
place; and they saw, as the cousin had before, that the foot-prints of
Wassamo stopped in the wood, as if he had gone no further upon the
earth, but had ascended into the air.

They returned to the village, and no man was the wiser as to the strange
and sudden vanishing of Wassamo. None ever looked to see him more; only
the parents, who still hoped and awaited his return.

The spring, with all its blossoms and its delicate newness of life, came
among them; the Indians assembled to celebrate their vernal feast from
all the country round.

Among them cam