believe."

"I have lived long," commenced the trapper, who found, by the general
pause, that he was expected to vindicate himself from the heavy
imputation, "and much evil have I seen in my day. Many are the prowling
bears and leaping panthers that I have met, fighting for the morsel
which has been thrown in their way; and many are the reasoning men, that
I have looked on striving against each other unto death, in order that
human madness might also have its hour. For myself, I hope, there is no
boasting in saying, that though my hand has been needed in putting down
wickedness and oppression, it has never struck a blow of which its owner
will be ashamed to hear, at a reckoning that shall be far mightier than
this."

"If my father has taken life from one of his tribe," said the young
Pawnee, whose quick eye had read the meaning of what was passing, in the
bullet and in the countenances of the others, "let him give himself
up to the friends of the dead, like a warrior. He is too just to need
thongs to lead him to judgment."

"Boy, I hope you do me justice. If I had done the foul deed, with which
they charge me, I should have manhood enough to come and offer my head
to the blow of punishment, as all good and honest Red-men do the same."
Then giving his anxious Indian friend a look, to re-assure him of
his innocence, he turned to the rest of his attentive and interested
listeners, as he continued in English, "I have a short story to tell,
and he that believes it will believe the truth, and he that disbelieves
it will only lead himself astray, and perhaps his neighbour too. We were
all out-lying about your camp, friend squatter, as by this time you
may begin to suspect, when we found that it contained a wronged and
imprisoned lady, with intentions neither more honest nor dishonest than
to set her free, as in nature and justice she had a right to be. Seeing
that I was more skilled in scouting than the others, while they lay
back in the cover, I was sent upon the plain, on the business of the
reconnoitrings. You little thought that one was so nigh, who saw into
all the circumventions of your hunt; but there was I, sometimes flat
behind a bush or a tuft of grass, sometimes rolling down a hill into a
bottom, and little did you dream that your motions were watched, as the
panther watches the drinking deer. Lord, squatter, when I was a man in
the pride and strength of my days, I have looked in at the tent door of
the enemy, and