s-grown trunk of a
fallen tree that lay near by, Burl and Kumshakah lighted their pipes and
sat for many minutes smoking in thoughtful, even melancholy, silence.
For, strange as it may seem, though neither had spoken a word
intelligible to the other since the beginning of their acquaintance, a
decided and cordial friendship had sprung up between the Fighting Nigger
and his Indian captive, insomuch that they were now very loath to part.
But the feeling which had arisen between the young Indian and the little
white boy was of a far more tender nature, each beholding in the other
the preserver of his life, and with a mutual gratitude heightened by
mutual admiration. Such is the power of instinct, which can discover
what words might try to reveal and fail. Their pipes smoked out, they
broke their fast on some jerked venison and buttered johnny-cakes, which
Burl, hospitable to the last, had brought along in his hunting-pouch. By
the time they had finished their simple repast and smoked another pipe,
the forest shadows had slowly shifted round from west to east, and were
now beginning perceptibly to lengthen, admonishing them that the hour
was come when they must part and go their separate ways.

But something more remained yet to be done. Taking the white stone pipe
which he had carved for Shekee-thepatee and filling its virgin bowl with
tobacco, Kumshakah lighted it, and slowly, with great solemnity, drew a
few whiffs therefrom, then offered it to Mish-mugwa. This the young
Indian did in token of his earnest wish that the peace and friendship
now existing between them should endure from that day forth, let come
what might, and that the sentiment, thus consecrated, should be
cherished as in some sort a solemn and religious duty. Poor Burl did not
know that Indians had any ceremonies at all; nor, until his acquaintance
with Kumshakah, that they had any thing in common with the human race,
excepting the art of fighting, and, to a limited degree, as it seemed to
him, the power of speech. So, till he had gone home that night and told
the white hunters of the circumstance, he could but vaguely guess at
the sentiment to which this simple ceremony of smoking the peace-pipe
gave expression. Nevertheless, with that facility at entering, for the
time being, into the feelings, thoughts, and ways of others peculiar to
his race, and which is due to self-unconscious imitation rather than to
self-determined adaptability, Mish-mugwa took the