n, or manniken slaves?

Costly patches, adorning your walls,
Are all of earth's beauty ye care to know;
But ye strut about in soul-stifled halls
To play moth-life by a candle-glow--
What soul has space for upward fling,
What manhood room for shoulder-swing,
Coffined and cramped from the vasts of God?

The Spirit of Life, O atrophied soul,
In trappings of ease is not confined;
That touch from Infinite Will 'neath the Whole
In Nature's temple, not man's, is shrined!
From hovel-shed come out and be strong!
Be ye free! Be redeemed from the wrong,
Of soul-guilt, I charge you as sons of God!

INTRODUCTION.

I, Rufus Gillespie, trader and clerk for the North-West Company, which
ruled over an empire broader than Europe in the beginning of this
century, and with Indian allies and its own riotous _Bois-Brules_,
carried war into the very heart of the vast territory claimed by its
rivals, the Honorable Hudson's Bay Company, have briefly related a few
stirring events of those boisterous days. Should the account here set
down be questioned, I appeal for confirmation to that missionary among
northern tribes, the famous priest, who is the son of the ill-fated girl
stolen by the wandering Iroquois. Lord Selkirk's narration of lawless
conflict with the Nor'-Westers and the verbal testimony of Red River
settlers, who are still living, will also substantiate what I have
stated; though allowance must be made for the violent partisan leaning
of witnesses, and from that, I--as a Nor'-Wester--do not claim to be
free.

On the charges and counter-charges of cruelty bandied between white men
and red, I have nothing to say. Remembering how white soldiers from
eastern cities took the skin of a native chief for a trophy of victory,
and recalling the fiendish glee of Mandanes over a victim, I can only
conclude that neither race may blamelessly point the finger of reproach
at the other.

Any variations in detail from actual occurrences as seen by my own eyes
are solely for the purpose of screening living descendants of those
whose lives are here portrayed from prying curiosity; but, in truth,
many experiences during the thrilling days of the fur companies were far
too harrowing for recital. I would fain have tempered some of the
incidents herein related to suit the sentiments of a milk-and-water age;
but that could be done only at the cost of truth.

There is no French strain