none shall say him nay, and the neeshaw may
bury himself as deep in the mud as he likes.

"At length the souls arrive at the region where they are destined to
spread their tents for ever. I have heard from the lips of our fathers
of its pleasures and its joys; all are well and truly described in your
old tradition. Happiness and rest are for the good, misery and labour
for the bad. Bright skies, eternal springs, and plenty of all things,
reward him who did his duty well; continual storms, endless winter,
parching thirst, pinching hunger, and crying nakedness, punish him who
performed them ill. Men and women of my nation! forsake evil ways, and
earn, by so doing, unbounded happiness. Hunter, dread not the bear, and
be patient and industrious; warrior, fear not thine enemy, and shouldst
thou unhappily fall into his power, bear his torments as a warrior
should bear them, and sing thy death-song in the ears of his tribe. And
thou, my beloved husband, persevere for a few more moons in the course
which made thee the light of my eyes while living, and renders thee not
less dear now I inhabit the world of spirits. Thou wilt soon rejoin the
souls of thy wife and child in the land of unceasing delights. Till
then, farewell."

Having spoken thus, the little doves flung out their skyey wings to
catch the breath of the Great Spirit sent to waft them home, and were
soon swept away from the sight of the Knisteneaux. Not so their tale,
which has resisted the current of time, and survives in the memories of
all our nation.

VI. THE TETON'S PARADISE.

If my brother will go abroad in a clear evening in the Moon of Falling
Leaves[A], and turn his eyes towards the cold regions of the Hunter's
Star, and the north wind, and the never-melting snows, he will often see
the skies flushed with a hue like that which mounts to the cheeks of a
young maiden, when the name of her lover is whispered in her ear, or
when that same lover presses her to his heart in the presence of curious
eyes and slandering tongues. At first, he will see a faint beam darting
up in the north, like the spray which shoots into the air, when the
waters dash upon a rocky frontlet. Gradually he will behold it arise,
till half the heavens, and sometimes the whole, is lit up with exceeding
brightness. Then will he hear in the skies a noise as of half-suppressed
laughter, and sometimes, though more rarely, he will behold the
light-winged aerial forms of the merry laug