rs who had come among them, viewing them
as they do wolves, and panthers, and catamounts, which are very much
in the way of Indians, and therefore they put them out of it as soon
as possible. At length, the great chief or governor at the City of the
High Rock, finding that the men whom he left within the big walls he
had built on the Oswegatchie were every moment in danger of being
massacred by their fierce and warlike neighbours, the Iroquois,
recalled his soldiers to his wing from their perilous flight, and bade
them soar no more in that dangerous direction. So the high walls he
had thrown up to serve as a barrier against the forest warrior fell to
the earth, and were never rebuilt. The grass grew up over them, the
winds whistled among them, and many spirits, white and red, came and
took up their residence in the corners and recesses of the deserted
habitation.

Among the white spirits that sojourned in the ruined fort there was
one who was very kind to the Indians, and often held long talks with
them, though they never saw him. Often, when the sun had retired to
his place of rest beyond the western mountains--for he would only hold
conversation when darkness covered the earth--the Indians would repair
to the outside of the ruins, and, calling upon the "Good Little
Fellow," he would come and entertain them, until the purple and grey
tints of morning shone in the eastern sky, with tales of his own pale
race, and of that other, the red, as connected with them. The eager
listeners would be told of cabins in which the Great Spirit was
worshipped, that were twice the flight of an arrow broad, and three
times its flight in length, and so high as to be beyond the daring of
the bird of morning. And he taught them to wonder much, and laugh a
little, by telling them that when men went to worship the Being in
whose honour and for whose worship the cabin was built, they dressed
themselves in their most gorgeous apparel, and put on long robes,
painted to look like the gay birds of the forest, and emulating in the
brightness of their dyes the bow in the clouds after a shower of rain.
When the Indians laughed at this, he told them that the Great Spirit,
the white people thought, never listened to those who were not well
dressed, and "looked smart." He said the white people were not like
the Indians; they only worshipped the Master of Life on the seventh
day of the week and a few other days, whereas the Indians worshipped
him every