wise. And shall we not teach him to still the cry of the boy?
We shall.

"Brothers and chiefs, the stranger loves to hear our words,
ask him if he does not. He desires that our mouths should
open, and repeat the stories which have been told us by our
fathers, and the fathers and mothers of our fathers--stories
of deeds which were done when the oak trees, now dying of age,
were saplings no higher than my knee. Shall he hear them? He
shall. The Good Spirit bids us speak, but he bids us speak
only truth. If we lie he will be angry with us, and will give
us up to our enemies, or the beasts of prey. He will spoil our
harvests. And when were deer ever found in the hunting-path of
the liar?

"Brothers and chiefs, I am young. The sprout from the seed of
the oak, planted on the day I was born, yet bends to the earth
with the weight of the wild cat. The knees of my father are
not feeble with age, nor is his hair thin or white. My mother
has a young panther in her lodge, she gives it her own milk.
Yet I will tell you a story. It is a tale of my nation, a tale
of an old day, delivered from father to son till it has
reached my time. Listen!"

The youthful chief then rose, and related the Shawano tradition,
entitled "The Man of Ashes."

TALES OF AN INDIAN CAMP.

* * * * *

THE MAN OF ASHES.

A great while ago, the Shawanos nation took up the war-talk against the
Walkullas, who lived on their own lands, on the borders of the Great
Salt Lake[A], and near the Burning Water[B]. Part of the nation were not
well pleased with the war. The head chief and the counsellors said the
Walkullas were very brave and cunning, and the priests said their god
was mightier than ours. The old and experienced warriors said the
counsellors were wise, and had spoken well; but the Mad Buffalo(1), and
the young warriors, and all who wished for war, would not listen to
their words. They said that our fathers had beaten their fathers in many
battles, and that the Shawanos were as brave and strong now as they ever
were, and the Walkullas much weaker and more cowardly. They said, the
old and timid, the faint heart, and the failing knee, might stay at home
and take care of the women and children, and sleep and dream of those
who had never dared bend a bow, or look upon a painted cheek, or listen
to a war-whoop; while t