call me
back. Let the dead rest. You are the living. I will remember only
you," and she laid the little one against her heart.

"Gaspar, too, Other Mother," suggested the loyal little maid.

But Gaspar was quite able to speak for himself.

"No decent white person would wish the old to die!" he exclaimed,
hotly. "There was a grandmother at our Fort, and she was the best
loved, the best cared for, of all the women. That is what a white boy
thinks, even if he is an Indian's prisoner!"

"Ugh! So? You are an odd youth, Dark-Eye. As timid as a wild pigeon
one minute, and the next--flouting your chief's sister."

"I don't mean that, Wahneenah. I--I only--I don't just know what I do
mean, except that it seems cowardly to wish the old should die. If you
should grow very, very old some day, and Kitty and I should not be--be
nice to you, then you would understand what I feel, if I cannot say it
rightly."

Wahneenah laughed.

"Your halting speech makes me happy, Dark-Eye. Kitty and you and I;
still all together, even when age shall have dimmed my sight and
dulled my hearing. It is well. I am satisfied. But hear me. Herein
lies the trouble: when folks are young they forget that they will ever
be old. That is a mistake. One should remember that youth flies away,
fast, fast. They should teach themselves wisdom. They should learn to
be skilled in the things which will make them lovely when they are
old. For, despite your judgment, there are some among us whom we would
keep till all generations are past. Katasha, the One-Who-Knows; and
the Snake-Who-Leaps--why, he is older even than Katasha. Yet there is
nobody can ride a horse, or shoot a flying bird, or bring in the game
that he can. He is the friend of his chief. He is the most honored one
in our whole village. Why? Because he makes few promises, and breaks
none. He has never lowered his manhood by drinking the fire-water that
addles one's brains and sets the limbs a-tremble. He has talked little
and done much. He is One-To-Be-Trusted. That was his name in his
youth, when he began to practise all his virtues. The other name came
afterward, because of the swift punishment he can also inflict upon
his enemies. You would do well to pattern after your teacher,
Dark-Eye."

Gaspar listened respectfully; but this sounded so very much like the
"lectures" he had received at the Fort that it had less originality
than most of Wahneenah's conversations; and, besides that, he had just