sed his head again he looked
inquiringly into the stern face of the other. Thus, indirectly, was
he begging permission to join the contemplated raid upon another
distant garrison.

Black Partridge understood but ignored the silent petition. He had
other, higher plans for the White Pelican. He would himself train the
courageous youth to be as wise and diplomatic as he was brave. When
the training was over, he should be sent to that distant land where
the Great Father of the white men dwelt, and should there make a plea
for the whole Indian race.

"Would not a man who saved all this"--sweeping his arm around toward
every point of the prairie--"to his people be better than one who
killed a half-dozen pale-faces yet lost his home?"

"Why--yes," said the other, regretfully. "But----"

"But it is the last chance. The time draws near when not an Indian
wigwam will dot this grand plain. Already, in the talk of the white
men, there is the plan forming to send us westward. Many a day's
journey will lie between us and this beloved spot. Our canoes will
soon vanish from the Great Lake, and we shall cease to glide over our
beautiful river. Hear me. It is fate. These people who have come to
oust us from our birthright have been sent by the Great Spirit. It is
His will. We have had our one day of life and of possession. They are
to have theirs. Who will come after them and destroy them? They----"

But the White Pelican could endure no more. The Black Partridge was
not often in such a mood as this, stern and sombre though he might
sometimes be, nor had his prophecies so far an outlook. That the
Indians should ever be driven entirely away by their white enemies
seemed a thing impossible to the stout-hearted young brave, and he
spoke his mind freely.

"My father has had sorrow this day, and his eyes are too dim to see
clearly. Or he has eaten of the white man's food and it has turned his
brain. Were it not for his dim eyesight, I would ask him to tell the
White Pelican what that creature might be that darts and wheels and
prances yonder"; and he pointed toward the western horizon.

Now there was a hidden taunt in the warrior's words. No man in the
whole Pottawatomie nation was reputed to have such clearness of
eyesight as the Black Partridge. The readiness with which he could
distinguish objects so distant as to be invisible to other men had
passed into a proverb among his neighbors, who believed that his
inward "visions" in som