mediately in the centre were aged men, who had apparently
drawn near, in order to observe the manner, in which a just and fearless
warrior would depart on the greatest of his journeys.

The old man was reaping the rewards of a life remarkable for temperance
and activity, in a tranquil and placid death. His vigour in a manner
endured to the very last. Decay, when it did occur, was rapid, but
free from pain. He had hunted with the tribe in the spring, and even
throughout most of the summer, when his limbs suddenly refused to
perform their customary offices. A sympathising weakness took possession
of all his faculties; and the Pawnees believed, that they were going to
lose, in this unexpected manner, a sage and counsellor, whom they
had begun both to love and respect. But as we have already said, the
immortal occupant seemed unwilling to desert its tenement. The lamp of
life flickered without becoming extinguished. On the morning of the day,
on which Middleton arrived, there was a general reviving of the powers
of the whole man. His tongue was again heard in wholesome maxims, and
his eye from time to time recognised the persons of his friends. It
merely proved to be a brief and final intercourse with the world on the
part of one, who had already been considered, as to mental communion, to
have taken his leave of it for ever.

When he had placed his guests in front of the dying man, Hard-Heart,
after a pause, that proceeded as much from sorrow as decorum, leaned a
little forward and demanded--

"Does my father hear the words of his son?"

"Speak," returned the trapper, in tones that issued from his chest, but
which were rendered awfully distinct by the stillness that reigned in
the place. "I am about to depart from the village of the Loups, and
shortly shall be beyond the reach of your voice."

"Let the wise chief have no cares for his journey," continued Hard-Heart
with an earnest solicitude, that led him to forget, for the moment,
that others were waiting to address his adopted parent; "a hundred Loups
shall clear his path from briars."

"Pawnee, I die as I have lived, a Christian man," resumed the trapper
with a force of voice that had the same startling effect upon his
hearers, as is produced by the trumpet, when its blast rises suddenly
and freely on the air, after its obstructed sounds have been heard
struggling in the distance: "as I came into life so will I leave it.
Horses and arms are not needed to stand in