thought of his wife, but his thought was a cold one; he did not love
her any more. He thought of his little ones, but his thoughts were
frozen; he did not care to meet them any more. He thought of his
parents, but he only wished to meet them to excite their envy. The
stream no longer charmed him, nor the flowers, nor the birds, nor
anything.

"'I will dissemble,' he said. He hurried home. His wife met him at the
door. He kissed her. She started back, and said:

"'Your lips are cold as death! What has happened?'

"His children kissed him, but they said:

"'Father, your cheeks are cold.'

"He tried to pray at the meal, but his sense of God was gone; he did not
love God, or his wife, or his children, or anything any more--he had a
stone-cold heart.

"After the evening meal he told his wife the events of the day. She
listened with horror.

"'In parting with your heart you have parted with everything that makes
life worth having,' said she. But he answered:

"'I do not care. I do not care for anything but gold now. I have a
stone-cold heart.'

"'But will gold make you happy?' she asked.

"He started. He went forth to work the next day, but he was not happy.
So day by day passed. His gold did not make his family happy, or his
friends, or any one, but he would not have cared for all these, for he
had a stone-cold heart. Had it made him happy? He saw the world all
happy around him, and heavier and heavier grew his heart, and at last he
could endure it no longer.

"One day he was sitting in the same place in the woods as before, when
he saw the shadowy figure stealing along the mosses of the stream again.
He looked up and beheld the giant, and exclaimed:

"'Give me back my heart!'"

"Have you learned the lesson?"

CHAPTER XXII.

THE INDIAN PLOT.

One sultry August night a party of Sac and Fox Indians were encamped in
a grove of oaks opposite Rock Island, on the western side of the
Mississippi. Among them were Main-Pogue and Waubeno.

The encampment commanded a view of the burial hills and bluffs of the
abandoned Sac village.

As the shadow of night stole over the warm, glimmering twilight, and the
stars came out, the lights in the settlers' cabins began to shine; and
as the Indians saw them one by one, their old resentment against the
settlers rose and bitter words passed, and an old warrior stood up to
rehearse his memories of the injustice that his race had suffered in the
old treaties and the