n harmony singing the praise of the Creator.

But a few hours have passed away, and how changed the scene. Numbers of
canoes are seen rapidly passing over the waters, and the angry savages
that spring from them as hastily ascending the hill. From the gates of
the fort, hundreds of Indians are seen collecting from every direction,
and all approaching the house of the interpreter. We will follow them.

Few have witnessed so wild a scene. The house of the interpreter
employed by government is near the fort, and all around it were
assembled the excited Indians. In front of the house is a piazza, and on
it lay the body of a young Dahcotah; his black hair plaited, and falling
over his swarthy face. The closed eye and compressed lips proclaimed the
presence of death. Life had but recently yielded to the sway of the
stern conqueror. A few hours ago Beloved Hail had eaten and drank on the
very spot where his body now reposed.

Bending over his head is his wife; tears fall like rain from her eyes;
and as grief has again overcome her efforts at composure, see how she
plunges her knife into her arm: and as the warm blood flows from the
wound calls upon the husband of her youth!

"My son! my son!" bursts from the lips of his aged mother, who weeps at
his feet; while her bleeding limbs bear witness to the wounds which she
had inflicted upon herself in the agony of her soul. Nor are these the
only mourners. A crowd of friends are weeping round his body. But the
mother has turned to the warriors as they press through the crowd; tears
enough have been shed, it is time to think of revenge. "Look at your
friend," she says, "look how heavily lies the strong arm, and see, he is
still, though his wife and aged mother call upon him. Who has done this?
who has killed the brave warrior? bring me the murderer, that I may cut
him on pieces."

It needed not to call upon the warriors who stood around. They were
excited enough. Bad Hail stood near, his eyes bloodshot with rage, his
lip quivering, and every trembling limb telling of the tempest within.
Shah-co-pee, the orator of the Dahcotahs, and "The Nest," their most
famous hunter; the tall form of the aged chief "Man in the cloud" leaned
against the railing, his sober countenance strangely contrasting with
the fiend-like look of his wife; Grey Iron and Little Hill, with brave
after brave, all crying vengeance to the foe, death to the Chippeway!

CHAPTER II.

But yesterday the Dahcota