the Star-flower, which was the
name of the beautiful Otto, till she had reached her seventeenth summer.

It was a little before sunset upon a pleasant day in the month of
green-corn, that a young man riding upon a noble white horse was seen
entering the great village of the Ottoes. He appeared to be very young,
but he was tall and straight as the hickory-tree. He was clothed as our
brother is clothed, only his garments were scarlet, and our brother's
are black. His hair, which was not so dark as that of the Indians, was
smooth and sleek as the hair on the head of a child, or the feathers on
the breast of the humming-bird. His head was encircled with a chaplet
made of the feathers of the song-sparrow and the red-headed-woodpecker.
He rode slowly through the village without stopping till he came to the
lodge of Wasabajinga, when he alighted, leaving his good horse to feed
upon the grass which grew around the cabin. He entered the lodge of the
chief. The stern old warrior, without rising from his bed of skins,
asked him who he was, and whence he came. He answered that he was the
son of the great Wahconda, and had come from the lodge of his father(4),
which lay among the high mountains towards the setting-sun.

"Have you killed any buffaloes on your journey?" demanded Wasabajinga.

"No," answered the young god.

"Then you must be very hungry," said the chief.

The young man answered that the son of the Wahconda had his food from
the skies, because the flesh of the animals which lived on the earth was
too gross for him. He lived, he said, upon the flesh of spirit beasts,
and fishes, and birds, roasted in the great fire-place of the
lightnings, and sent him by the hands of the Manitous of the air. His
drink was the rain-drops purified in the clouds.

The chief asked him if he had come on a message from the Wahconda to the
Little Black Bear of the Ottoes.

The young man answered that he had. He said his father had shewn him
from the high mountains of the west the beautiful daughter of the Otto
chief--had told him she was good as she was beautiful, and bidden him
come and ask her for his wife. His father, he said, bade him tell the
Bear of the Ottoes, that, though his daughter must now leave her father,
and mother, and nation, and accompany his son into the regions of
ever-bright suns, and balmy winds, yet, in a few seasons more, when the
knees of the chief had become feeble, and his eyes dim with the mists of
age, and