e horse is disabled."

The people went out to meet the Indian boy. The horse was burned and
blind, and staggered as he came on. And the rider! He had drawn the
flames into his vitals; he had been internally burned, and was dying.

He reeled from his blind horse, and fell before the people. Jasper laid
his hand upon him.

"Father, I have drunk the cup of fire. I have kept my promise. I am
about to die. The birds are happy. They are singing the death-song of
Waubeno."

His flesh quivered as he lay there, and Jasper bent over him in pity.

"Waubeno, do you suffer?"

"The stars do not complain, white brother. The clouded sun does not
complain. The winds complain, and the waters, and women and children.
Waubeno does not complain."

A spasm shook his frame. It passed.

"White brother, go beyond the Mississippi and teach my people. You do
pity them. This was once their paradise. They loved it. They struggled.
Go to them with the Book of God."

"Waubeno, I will go."

"The sun sets over the Mississippi. 'Tis sunset there. You will go to
the land of the sunset?"

"Yes, Waubeno. I feel in my heart the call to go. I love and pity your
people."

"Pour water upon me; I am burning. I shall go when the moon comes up,
when the moon comes up into the shady sky. My father suffered, but he
did not complain. Waubeno does not complain. Don't pity me. Pity my poor
people. I love my people. Teach my people, and cover me forever with a
blanket of the earth."

He lay on the cool grass under the trees for several hours in terrible
agony, and the people watched by his side.

"When the moon rises," he said, "I shall go. I shall never see the Red
Man's Paradise again. Tell me when the moon rises. I am going to sleep
now."

The great moon rose at last, its disk hanging like a wheel of dead gold
on the verge of the horizon in the smoky air.

"Waubeno," said Jasper, "the moon is rising."

He opened his eyes, and said:

"We kindled the fire for our fathers' sake, and I smote it for him who
protected Main-Pogue. What was his name, father? Say it to me."

"Lincoln."

"Yes, Lincoln. He had come for revenge, but he did what was right. He
forgave. I forgive everybody. I drank the fire for Lincoln's sake."

The moon burned along the sky; the stars came out; and at midnight all
was still. Waubeno lay dead under the trees, and the people with timid
steps vanished hither and thither into the cabins and sheds.

They killed the poor b