, bade adieu to the land of their fathers' bones.
Did these valiant youths return, and did the words of the prophet-boy
fall to the ground? Let the wolf, and the vulture, and the
mountain-cat, answer the question. They will tell my brother that
their voracious tribes held a feast in the far country of the
Coppermines, and that the remains of that feast were a huge heap of
human bones. Were they the bones of Andirondacks? They were, and thus
were the prophetic words of the wise boy rendered true, and his
reputation was established throughout the land.

And when years came over him, and the fire of early manhood beamed in
his eye, the same signs of his being favoured of Heaven were
displayed. He needed no practice to enable him to conquer in all the
sports and exercises which are indulged in by the boys of his nation.
He went beyond them in all which bespoke possession of the skill and
courage necessary to make a patient and expert hunter, or a brave and
successful warrior. In the game of archery, his arrow was ever
nearest the clout, and in hurling the spear, his oftenest clove
asunder the reed which was fixed as the mark. Ere he had seen fifteen
harvestings of the maize, he could throw the stoutest man of the tribe
in the wrestle, and his feet in the race were swifter than the deer in
its flight from the steps of the red hunter. When grey-headed men
assembled in the council to deliberate upon the affairs of the tribe,
their invasions, or their projected removals to other hunting-grounds,
they asked "Where is the wise boy?" If he were not present, he was
sent for, and no determination was made till he came, and had
delivered his thoughts. And thus grew up the young Piskaret, till he
had reached his twentieth spring.

There was in the neighbouring nation of Ottawas a maiden who was as
much celebrated for her beauty, and her charms, and her wit, as the
Andirondack youth was for strength, and wisdom, and prudence. Her
Indian name was Menana, which means the Daughter of the Flood. She had
reached the sixteenth summer of her residence among the Ottawas, the
gentlest and lightest hearted, the mildest and sweetest maiden, that
ever gazed on the pale full moon, or the glittering stars, or listened
to the song of the sparrow, or the waterfall. She knew how to do every
thing that was beautiful, or useful. If you saw a piece of gorgeously
dyed wampum, or a robe curiously plaited of the bark of the mulberry,
or the feathers of the