dreadful day of massacre,
and he had felt the man's spirit within his child-body. Now again, a
commander of others, the wise leader of a different people, was
honoring him with a share in his council. There must be good in him,
and some sort of wisdom--even though so young--else they had paid him
no heed. His cheek flushed, his breast heaved, and his beautiful eyes
shone with the exultation that thrilled him.

"Let the chief pardon the child--which I was, but a moment ago. I am
become a man. I will do a man's task, now and forever. If I suspected
evil where there was none, is it a wonder? I have told Wahneenah, the
Happy, the story of my life. The Black Partridge knew it already."

Quite unconsciously, Gaspar dropped into the Indian manner of speech,
and he could not have done a better thing for himself had he pondered
the matter for long. Black Partridge nodded approvingly, and remarked:

"Another Sauganash is here! Well, while the Sun Maid sleeps, let us
consider the future. The evil days are near."

"What is the evil that my brother, the chief, beholds with his inner
vision?" questioned the woman.

"War and bloodshed. Still more of war, still more of death. In the end
will our wigwams lie flat on the earth as fallen leaves, while the
remnant of my people moves onward, forever onward toward the setting
sun."

Wahneenah kept a respectful silence, but in her heart she resented the
dire forebodings of her chief. At last, when her brooding thought
forced utterance, she inquired:

"Can not the wisdom of the Black Partridge hinder these days of
calamity? If the great Gomo, and Winnemeg, and those white braves who
have lived among us, as the Sauganash, take counsel together, and
compel their tribes to keep the peace, and to copy of the pale-faces
the arts which have made them so powerful--will not this avert the
evil? Why may there not in some time and place, a mighty grave be
digged in which may be buried all the guns that kill and the knives
that scalp, with the arrows which fly more swiftly than a bird? Over
all may there not be emptied the casks and bottles of the fearful
fire-water, that, passing through the lips of a warrior, changes him
to a beast? Then the red man and his pale brother may clasp hands
together and abide, each upon the earth, where the Great Spirit placed
him."

"It is a dream. Dreams vanish. Even as now the night speeds, and we
are far from home. It avails us not to think of what might--but