day--which was much the best way, he thought. And he told
the Indians many other things, respecting the white people living over
the Great Salt Lake, some of which made them think they were very
wise, and valiant, and prudent, but the most of what he said went to
prove them great fools. And when he told them that the men weeded the
corn, while the women sat doing nothing, or "galloping from cabin to
cabin," the Indians, who had become so well acquainted with him that
they could speak with freedom, bade him return and tell his people how
much better the Indians managed these things.

Once upon a time, as he sat repeating his tales to the wondering
Indian visiters, he said to them: Did you ever hear about Garanga,
the beautiful bird that was taken from her perch in the cabin of the
White Crane, the great warrior of the Iroquois, by a man of my nation?

The Indians all answered, No; and so they would have answered had they
heard it twenty times, for he varied his stories every time he
repeated them, as the pale faces always do; so they were sure to have
a new story though it had an old name. Then I will tell it you, said
he, and he began as follows.

There came to this fort, while it was yet standing in all its pride, a
young chief of my nation to be its governor. He was a mere youth to be
entrusted with so high and responsible an office, but, though young in
years, he was old in understanding. He was also very beautiful to look
upon, and his stature was of the tallest of the sons of the earth. The
Indian maidens that visited the fort with their fathers and brothers
bestowed much praise upon his fine and manly form, and their friends
of the other sex did the same upon his courageous spirit, and his
superiority in those exercises in which one must excel if he would
command the esteem, and excite the awe, of the red men of the forest.
The men likened him for swiftness to the deer, and for agility to the
mountain-cat, and for strength to the bear, and for courage to all
that is courageous; the women compared his skin to the water-lily, and
his eyes to the blue sky when it is bluest, and his hair to the silken
tassels of ripened corn, and his step to the stag's, and his voice to
the song-sparrow's. Whatever is beautiful among the works of nature
was brought in by comparison, to express their admiration of the
graceful and gallant stranger.

Among the bright-eyed maidens who visited the fort, as they said, to
buy beads and