nd the dark hills of the west, since I or mine
have tasted food. For myself, I care little--I am a man of the woods,
a patient warrior; I can fast seven suns; I am not even now faint--but
a tender woman has not the soul of a strong warrior, and when she sees
not meat every day, she leans her head upon her hand, and when her
child droops for food she weeps. Give me food."

"Begone!" said the white man, "I earn my bread and meat by the sweat
of my brow--"

"On the lands of the Indian," interrupted the stern warrior.

"On my own lands--lands reclaimed from wildness--lands suffered to lie
waste for ages, and only made to be of use to human beings when my
race came hither with hard hands and patient souls, and felled the
trees, and rooted out the obstacles which kept out the beams of the
cherishing and invigorating sun. Begone to thy den in the wilderness!"

"Give me but food for the Sparrow and her little one, and the Hawk
will go without. He has yet strength enough left to enable him to
carry his feet to the wilds stocked with deer, and the Great Being
will himself direct the arrow which is to procure the means to sustain
life. But my wife and child, whose lives I value beyond my own, will
faint and die, ere that distant spot be gained."

"You shall have no food here; I will not feed lazy Indians," answered
the white man.

The Indian said nothing, but the pale and fainting mother looked on
her sick infant and burst into tears.

There was sitting on the greensward at the Englishman's door a
beautiful little girl not yet grown to perfect womanhood, but on its
verge--a fawn far in its second season--a tree wanting but a few more
suns to be clothed with the blossoms of maturity. She was the only
child of the white man--the only pledge of love left him by a beloved
wife who slept in the earth. She was most tenderly beloved by her
father, and seldom asked any thing in vain. At her side sat a boy,
perhaps two or three seasons older, playing with her the games of
childhood.

"Father," said she, rising and approaching him in a supplicating
manner, "suppose your daughter was cast friendless and hungry among
the sons of the forest, and they denied her food. Would not the wrath
of the Great Spirit be upon them for their inhumanity?"

The father looked thoughtful, but made no reply.

"Father, do you love your child?--If you do, permit her to feed the
good Indian father who would starve himself so those he loves could be
fe