ry," answered the red man, coldly, "no; my FATHER'S country,
yes."

His English was good, denoting more than a common education, though it
had a slightly foreign or peculiar accent. The intonations of his voice
were decidedly those of the Indian.

"You have come to visit the land of your fathers?"

A slight wave of the hand was the reply. All this time the young Seneca
kept his eye fastened in one direction, apparently regarding some
object in the lake. Fuller could see nothing to attract this nearly
riveted gaze, though curiosity induced him to make the effort.

"You admire this sheet of water, by the earnest manner in which you
look upon it?" observed Fuller.

"See!" exclaimed the Indian, motioning toward a point near a mile
distant. "He moves! may be he will come here."

"Moves! I see nothing but land, water, and sky. What moves?"

"The Swimming Seneca. For a thousand winters he is to swim in the
waters of this lake. Such is the tradition of my people. Five hundred
winters are gone by since he was thrown into the lake; five hundred
more must come before he will sink. The curse of the Manitou is on him.
Fire will not burn him; water will not swallow him up; the fish will
not go near him; even the accursed axe of the settler can not cut him
into chips! There he floats, and must float, until his time is
finished!"

{Swimming Seneca = though I have been unable to discover any genuine
Native American origin for this legend, a detailed variation of it can
be found in a poem, "Outalissa", by Rev. Ralph Hoyt, published in
"Sketches by Rev. Hoyt, Vol. VIII" (New York. C. Shepard, n.d. [ca.
1848] (the Geneva College library copy of which is inscribed "DeLancey"
and may have belonged to the family of Cooper's brother-in-law,
Episcopal Bishop of Western New York William Heathcote De Lancey
(1797-1865), who lived in Geneva)--a somewhat different version forms
the Geneva (Hobart) College student legend of Chief Agayentha or "The
Floating Chief."}

"You must mean the 'Wandering. Jew?'"

"So the pale-faces call him; but he was never a Jew. 'Tis a chief of
the Senecas, thrown into the lake by the Great Spirit, for his bad
conduct. Whenever he tries to get upon the land, the Spirit speaks to
him from the caves below, and he obeys."

"THAT must mean the 'Lake Gun?'"

"So the pale-faces call it. It is not strange that the names of the red
man and of the pale-faces should differ."

"The races are not the same, and each h