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Entered aecording to Act of Congresa, in the year 1878, by BEADLE aNpD Anas, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

 

EACH NUMBER COMPLETE.

10 cts.

 

 

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“ Malaeska,” said he, striving to wind his arms about her, “my poor girl, what will become of you? Oh, God! who will take care of my boy ?"*

Mialaeska $

THE INDIAN WIFE OF

THE WHITE HUNTER.

 

BY MRS. ANN

Ss. STEPHENS.

 

CHAPTER I.

Tue traveler who has stopped at Catskill, on his way up
the Hudson, will remember that a creek of no insignificant
breadth washes one side of the village, and that a heavy stone’
dwelling stands a little up from the water on a point of ver-
dant meadow land, which forms a lip of the stream, where it
empties into the more majestic Tiver. This farm-house is the
only object that breaks the green and luxuriant beauty of the
poin', on that side, and its quiet and entire loneliness con-

 

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860. by BkEApie# AnD Company, in the Clerk’s
Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

trasts pleasantly with the bustling and crowded little village
on the opposite body of land... There is much to attract atten-
tion to that dwelling. Besides occupying one of the most
lovely sites on the river, it is remarkable for an appearance of
old-fashioned comfort at variance with the pillared houses
and rustic cottages which meet the eye everywhere on the
banks of the Hudson. There are no flowers to fling fragrance
about it; and but little of embellishment is manifest in its
grounds; but it is surrounded by an abundance of thrifty
fruit-trees; an extensive orchard sheds its rich foliage to the
sunshine on the bank, and thesward is thick and heavy which
slopes greenly from the front door down to the river’s brink.

 
   

2

NEW AND OLD FRIENDS.

 

The interior of the house retains an air of substantial com-
fort whieh answers well to the promise conveyed without.
The heavy furniture has grown old with its occupants; rich
it has been in its time, and now it possesses the rare quality
of fitness, and of being in harmony with surrounding things.

Every thing about the house is in perfect kueping with the

character and appearance of its owners “The oecupant him-
self, is a fine stately farmer of the old class—shrewd, penetra-
ting, and intelligent—one of those men who contrive to keep
the heart green when the frost of age is chilling the blood
and whitening upon the brow. He has already numbered
more than the threescore years and ten allotted to man.
His habits and the fashion of his attire are those of fifty years
ago. He still clings to huge wood-fires, apples, and cider in
the winter season, and allows a bevy of fine cows to pasture
on the rich grass in front of his dwelling in the summer. All
the hospitable feeling of former years remains warm at his
heart. He is indeed a fine specimen of the staunch old, re-
publican farmer of the last century, occupying the house
which his father erected, and enjoying a fresh old age beneath
the roof-tree which shadowed his infancy.

During a oe in this vicinity last season, it was one of
our greatest pleasures to spend an evening with the old gen-
tleman, listening to legends of the Indians, reminiscences of
the Revolution, and pithy remarks on the present age, with
which he loved to entertain us, while we occasionally inter-
rupted him by comparing knitting-work with the kind old
lady, his wife, or by the praises of a sweet little grandchild,
who would cling about his knees and play with the silver
buckles on his shoes as he talked. That tall, stately old man,
and the sweet child made a beautiful picture of ‘‘ age at play
with infancy,” when the fire-light flickered over them, to the
ancient family pictures, painted in Holland, hanging on the
wall behind us, in the old-fashioned oval frames which, with
the heavy Dutch Bible which lay on the stand, secured with
hasps and brass hinges, ponderous as the fastening of a prison-
door, were family relics precious to the old gentleman from
antiquity and association. Yes, the picture was pleasant to
look upon; but there was pleasure in listening to his legends
and stories. If the one here related is not exactly as he told
it, he will not fail to recognize the beautiful young Indian
girl, whom he described to us, in the character of Malaeska.

At the time of our story, the beautiful expanse of. country
which stretches from the foot of the Catskill mountains to the
Hudson was one dense*wilderness. The noble stream glided
on in the solemn stillness of nature, shadowed with trees that

had battled with oe for centuries, its surface as yet un-
broken, save by the ae ok of the Indian’s canoe. The
lofty rampart of mountains frowned against the sky as they
do now, but rendered more gloomy by the thick growth of
timber which ¢lothed them at the base; they loomed up from
the dense sea of foliage like the outposts of a darker world.
Of all the cultivated acres which at the present day sustain
thousands with their products, one little clearing alone smiled
up from the heart of the wilderness. A few hundred acres
had been cleared by a hardy band of settlers, and a cluster of
jog-houses was erected in the heart of the little valley which
now contains Catskill village. Although in the neighborhood
of a savage Indian tribe, the little band of pioneers remained
unmolested in their humble occupations, gradually clearing
the land around their settlement, and sustaining their families
on the game which was found in abundance in the mountains.
They held little intercourse with the Indians, but hitherto no
act of hostility on either side had aroused discontent between
the settlers and the savages.

It was early in May, about a year after the first settlement
of the whites, when some six or eight of the stoutest_ men
‘started for the woods in search of game. <A bear had been
seen on the brink of the clearing at break of day, and while
the greater number struck off in search of more humble game,
three of the most resolute followed his trail, which led to the
mountains.

The foremost of the three hunters was an Englishman of
about forty, habited in a threadbare suit of blue broadcloth,
with drab gaiters buttoned up to his knees, and a hat sadly
shorn of its original nap. His hunting apparatus bespoke the
peculiar care which all of his country so abundantly bestow
on their implements of sport. The other two were much

ounger, and dressed in home-made cloth, over which were

oose frocks manufactured from the refuse flax or swingled
tow. Both were handsome, but different in the cast of their
features. The character of the first might be read in his gay
air and springy step, as he followed close to the Englishman,
dashing away the brushwood with the muzzle of his gun, and

 

detecting. witha quick eye the broken twigs or disturbed
leaves which betrayed the course of the hunted bear. There

was also something characteristic in the wearing of his dress,
in the fox-skin cap thrown carelessly on one side of his su-
perb head, exposing a mass of short brown curls around the
left ear and temple, and in the bosom of his coarse frock,
thrown open so as to give free motion toa, neck Apollo might
have coveted. He was a hunter, who had occasionally visited
the settlement of late, but spent whole weeks in the woods,
professedly in collecting furs by his own efforts, or by pur-
chase from the tribe of Indians encamped at the foot of the
mountains.

The last was more sedate in his looks, and less buoyant in
his air. There was an intellectual expression in his high,
thoughtful brow embrowned though it was by exposure. A
depth of thought in his serious eye and a graceful dignity in
his carriage, bespoke him as one of those who hide deep feel-
ing under an appearance of coldness and apathy., He had
been a schoolmaster in the Bay State, from whence he had
been drawn by the bright eyes and merry laugh of one Martha
Fellows, a maiden of seventeen, whose father had moved to
the settlement at Catskill the preceding summer, and to whom,
report said, he was to be married whenever a minister, autho-
rized to perform the ceremony, should find his way to the
settlement.

The three hunters bent their way in a south-western direc-
tion from the settlement, till the forest suddenly opened into
a beautiful and secluded piece of meadow-land, known to this
day by its Dutch title of ‘‘the Straka,” which means, our
aged friends informed us, a strip of land. The Straka lay be-
fore them of an oblong form, some eight or ten acres in ex-
panse, with all its luxuriance of trees, grass and flowers,
bathed in the dew and sunshine of a summer’s morning. It
presented a lovely contrast to the dense wilderness from
which the hunters emerged, and they halted for a moment
beneath the boughs of a tall hickory to enjoy its delicious
freshness. The surface of the inclosure was not exactly level,
but down the whole length it curved gently up from the mid-
dle, on either side, to the magnificent: trees that hedged it in

‘with a beautiful and leafy ramparte The-margin was irregu-

lar; here and there a clump of trees shot down into the in-
closure, and the clearing occasionally ran up into the forest
in tiny glades and little grassy nooks, in which the sunlight
slumbered like smiles on the face of a dreaming infant: On
every side the trunks of huge trees shot up eye margin
beneath: their magnificent canopy of leaves, like the ivied
columns of a ruin, or fell back in the misty perspective of the
forest, scarcely discernible in its gloom of shadow. The
heavy piles of foliage, which fell amid the boughs like a
wealth of drapery flung in masses to the summer wind, was
thrifty and ripe with the warm breath of August. No spirit
of decay had as yet shed a gorgeous breath over its deep, rich

green, but all was wet with dew, and kindled up by the sun--

ight to a thousand varying tints of the same color. A bright.
spring gushed from a swell of ground in the upper part of
the inclosure, and the whole surface ofthe beautiful spot
was covered witha vigorous growth of tall meadow-grass,
which rose thicker and brighter and of a more. delicate green
down the middle, where thespring curved onward in a grace-
ful rivulet, musical as the laugh of achild. As if called to
life by the .chime of a littie brook, a host of white wild
flowers unfolded their starry blossoms along the margin, and
clumps of swamp lilies shed an azure hue along the grass.
Until that day, our hunters had ever found ‘‘the Straka”
silent and untenanted, save by singing-birds, and wild deer
which ¢ame dowh from the mountains to feed on its rich ver-
dure; but now a dozen wreaths of smoke curled up from the
trees at the northern extremity, and a camp of newly-erected
wigwams might be seen through a vistain the wood. One
or two were built even on the edge of the clearing; the grass.
was much trampled around them, and three or four half-
naked Indian children lay rolling upon it, laughing, shouting,
and flinging up their limbs in the pleasant morning air. One
young Indian woman was also frolicking among them, toss-
ing an infant in her arms, caroling and playing with it. Her
laugh was musical as a bird song, and as she darted to and
fro, now into the forest and then out into the sunshine, her
long hair glowed like the wing of a raven, and her motion
was graceful as an untamed gazelle. They could sce that the
child, too, was very beautiful, even from the distance at
which they stood, and occasionally, as the wind swept toward

them, his shout came ringing wpc2 it like the gush of waters.

leaping from their fount.
“This is a little too bad,’ muttered the Englishman, finger-

 

 
 

upward to the very sky. He was ponderin

Se coneane — ~ sheen

MALAHESKA, THE INDIAN WIFE OF THE WHITE HUNTER. 3

ing his gun-lock. ‘Can they find no spot to burrow in but
‘the Straka?” St. George! but I havea mind to’ shoot’ the
squaw and wring the neck of every red imp among them.”

“Do it!” exclaimed Danforth, turning furiously upon him;
“touch but a hair of her head, and by the Lawl: that made
me, I will bespatter that tree with your brains!”

The Saiaanad dropped the stock of his musket hard to
the ground, and a spot of fiery red flashed into his cheek at
this savage burst of anger so uncalled for and so insolent.
He gazed a moment on the frowning face of the young hunter,
and then lifting his gun, turned carelessly away.

‘“Tut, man, have done with this,” he said; ‘‘I did but jest.
Come, we have lost the trail; and shall miss the game, too, if
we tarry longer; come.” |

The Englishman shouldered his musket, as he spoke, and
turned into the woods. Jones followed, but Danforth lin-
gered behind.

“T must see what this means,” he muttered, glancing after
his companions, and then at the group of young Indians;
“‘ what can have brought them so near the settlement?”

He gave another quick glance toward the hunters, and then
hurried across ‘the Straka” toward the wigwams. Jones
and the Englishman had reached the little lake or pond, which
was about a mile south of ‘‘the Straka,” when they were
again joined by Danforth. His brow was unclouded, and he
seemed anxious to do away the effect of his late violence by
more than ordinary cheerfulness. Harmony was. restored,
and they again struck into the trail of the bear, and pursued
toward the mountains.

Noon found our hunters deep in the ravines which cut into ,

the ridge of the Catskill on which the Mountain House now
stands. Occupied’ by the wild scenery which surrounded
him, Jones became separated from his companions, and long
before he was aware of it, they had proceeded far beyond the
reach of his voice. When he became sensible of his situation,
he found himself in a deep ravine sunk into the very heart of
the mountains. A small stream crept along the rocky bot-
tom, untouched by’a single sun’s ray, though it was now
high noon. Every thing about him was wild ar | fearfully
sublime, but'the shadows were refreshing and col, and the
stream, rippling along its rocky bed, sent up a pleasant mur-
mur as he passed. Gradually a soft, flowing souad, like the
rush of a current of air through a labyrinth of leaves and blos-
soms, came gently to his ear. As he proceeded, it became
more musical and liquid, swelled upon the ear gradually and
with a richer burden of sound, till he knew that it was the
rush and leap of waters at no great distance. The ravine had |
sunk deeper, ‘and fragments’ of rock lay'thickly in the bed of
the stream. Arthur Jones paused, and looked about him be-
wildered, and yet with a lofty, poetical feeling at his heart,
aroused by a sense of the glotious handiwork of the Almighty
encompassing him. He stood within the heart of the mouti-
tain, and it seemed to heave and tremble beneath his feet with
some unknown influence as he gazed. Precipices, and rocks
piled on rocks were heaped to the sky on either side. Large
forest-trees stood rooted in the wide clefts, and waved their
heavy boughs abroad like torn banners streaming upon the
air. A strip of the blue heavens arched gently over the
whole, and that was beautiful. ‘Itsmiled softly, and like a
promise of love over that sunless ravine. Another step, and
the waterfall was.before him. ‘It was sublime, but beautiful
—oh, very beautiful—that little body of water, curling and
foaming downward likes wreath of snow sifted from the
clouds, breaking in a shower of spray over the shelf of rocks
which stayed its progress, then leaping a second foaming
mass, down, down, like a deluge of flowing light, another
hundred feet tothe shadowy depths of the ravine. A shower
of sunlight played amid the foliage far overhead, and upon
the top of the curving precipice olare the waters made their
first leap. As the hunter became more calm, he remarked
how harmoniously the beautiful and sublime were blended in
the scene. ‘The precipices were rugged: and frowning, but
soft rich mosses and patches of delicate white wild-flowers
clung about them. So’ profusely were those gentle flowers
lavished upon'the rocks, that it seemed as ‘if the very spray
drops were breaking into blossoms as they fell. ‘The hunter's
heart swelled with pleasure ashe drank in the extreme beauty
of the scene. He rested his gun against a fragment of rock,
and sat down with his eyes fixed on the waterfall. As he
gazed, it seemed as if the precipices were moving upward—
on this strange
optical illusion, which has puzzled many a dizzy brain since, ,
when the click of a gunlock struck sharply on his ear. He
sprung to his feet. A bullet whistled by his head, cutting
’ jy 7-7

 

through the dark locks which curled in heavy masses above
his temples, and as a scene of giddiness cleared from his brain,
he saw a half-naked savage crouching upon the ledge of rocks
which ran along the foot of the fall. The spray fell upon his
bronzed shoulders and sprinkled the stock of his musket as
he lifted it to discharge the other barrel. With the quickness
of thought, Jones drew his musket to his eye and fired. The
savage sent forth a fierce, wild yell of agony, and springing
up with the bound of a wild animal, fell headlong from the
shelf. Trembling with excitement, yet firm and courageous,
the hunter reloaded his gun, and stood ready to sell his life
as dearly as possible, for he believed that the ravine was full
of concealed savages, who would fall upon him like a pack
of wolves. But every thing» remained quiet, and when he
found that he was alone, a terrible consciousness of bloodshed
came upon him. His knees trembled, his cheek burned, and
with an impulse of fierce excitement, he leaped over the in-
tervening rocks and stood by the slain savage. _ He was lying
with his face to the earth quite dead; Jones drew forth his
knife, and lifting the long, black hair, cut it away from the
crown. With the trophy in his hand, he sprung across the
ravine. The fearless spirit of a madness seemed upon him,
for he rushed up the steep ascent, and plunged into the forest,
apparently careless what direction he took. The sound of a
musket stopped his aimless career. He listened, and bent his
steps more calmly toward the eminence on,which the Moun-
tain House now stands. . Here he found the Englishman with
the carcass of a huge bear stretched at his feet, gazing on the
glorious expanse of country, spread out like a map, hundreds
of fathoms beneath him. His face was flushed, and the per-
spiration rolled freely from his forehead. . Danforth stood
beside him, also bearing traces of recent conflict.

‘* So you have come to claim a share of the meat,” said the
old hunter, as Jones approached. ‘‘It is brave to leave your
skulking place in the bushes, when the danger is over. Bless
me, Jad! what have you there?” he exclaimed, starting up and
pointing to the scalp.

Jones related his encounter with the savage. The English-
man shook his head forebodingly.

““We shall have hot work for this job before the week is
over,” he said. ‘‘It was a foolish shot; but keep.a good
heart, my lad, for hang me, if I should not have done the
same thing if the red devil had sent a bullet so near my head.
Come, we will go and bury the fellow the best way we can.”

Jones led the way to the fall, but they found. only a few
scattered locks of black hair, and a poolof blood half washed
from the rock by the spray. The body of the savage and his
rifle had disappeared—how, it was vain to conjecture.

One of the largest log-houses, in the settlement had been ap-
propriated asa kind of tavern, or place of meeting for the
settlers when they returned from their hunting excursions.
Here a store of spirits was kept, wnder the care of John Fel-
lows and pretty Martha Fellows, his, daughter, the maiden
before mentioned. As.the sun went down, the men who had
gone to the woods in the morning began to collect with their
game. ‘Two stags, raccoons and meaner game in abundance,
were lying before the door, when the three hunters came in
with the slain bear. They were greeted with a, boisterous
shout, and the hunters crowded eagerly forward to examine
the prize; but when Jones cast the Indian’s scalp, on. the pile,
they looked in each other's faces with ominous silence, while
the young hunter stood pale and collected before them. It
was the first time that Indian life had been taken by any of
their number, and they felt that in the shedding. of red blood,
the barriers of their protection were broken down.

‘¢Tt is a bad business,” said one of the eldersettlers, waving
his head and breaking the general silence.‘ There'll be no
clear hunting in the woods after this; but how did it-all come
about, Jones? Let us know how you come by that sealp—did
the varmint fire at you, or how was it?” 2 ay
» The hunters gathered around Jones, who was about to ac-
count:for his possession. of the scalp, when the door of. the
house was opened, and he happened to look into, the little
room thus exposed. It was scantily furnished with a, few
benches and stools; a bed was in one corner, and Martha Fel-
lows, his promised wife, stood by a rough ‘deal table, on
which were two or three drinking-cups, a couple of half-
empty bottles,;with a pitcher of water, backed by a broken
mug, filled to the fractured top with maple molasses. . Noth-

ing of the kind could haye been more beautiful than. pretty
Martha as she bent forward, listening with rapt attention to
the animated whisper of William Danforth, who stood by her,
divested of his coarse frock, his cap lying on the table before
him, and his athletic figure displayed to the best advantage

 
 

4 NEW AND OLD FRIENDS.

by the roundabout buttoned closely over his bosom. A. red
silk handkerchief, tied like’ a scarf round his waist, gave a
picturesque gracefulness to his costume, although in harmon:
with his fine proportions, and with the bold cast of his head,
which certainly was a model of muscular beauty.

A flash of anger shot athwart Arthur Jones’ forehead, and
a strange jealous feeling came to his heart. He began a con-
fused account of his adventure, but the Englishman interrup-
ted him, and took it upon himself to gratify the clamorous
curiosity of the hunters, leaving Jones at liberty to scrutinize
each look and motion of his lady-love. He watched with a
jealous feeling the blush as it deepened and glowed on her
embrowned cheek; he saw the sparkling pleasure of her hazel
eyes, and the pretty dimples gathered about her red lips, like
spots of sunlight flickering through the leaves of a red rose,
and his heart sickened with distrust. But when the hand-
some hunter laid his hands on hers and bent his head, till the
short curls on his temples almost mingled with her glossy
ringlets, the lover could bear the sight no more. Breaking
from the little band of hunters, he stalked majestically into
the house, and approaching the object of his uneasiness, ex-
claimed, ‘‘ Martha Fellows,” in a voice which caused the
pretty culprit to snatch her hand from under the hunter’s, and
to overturn two empty tin cups in her fright.

‘‘ Sir,” said Martha, recovering herself, and casting a mis-

chievous glance at Danforth, which was reciprocated with _

interest. :

Mr. Arthur Jones felt that he was making himself ridicu-
lous, and suppressing his wrath, he finished his magnificent
commencement: ‘‘ Will you give me a drink of water?” At
which Martha pointed with her little embrowned hand to the
pitcher, saying:

‘There it is;” then, turning her back to her lover, she cast
another arch glance at Danforth, and taking his cap from the
table, began to blow upon the yellow fur, and put it to her
cheek, as if it had been a pet kitten she was caressing, and
all for the laudable purpose of’tormenting the man who loved
her, and whom she loved better than any thing in existence.
Jones turned on her a bitter, contemptuous look, and raising
the pitcher to his lips, left the room. Ina few minutes the
other hunters entered, and Jason Fellows, father to Martha,
announced it as decided by the hunters, who had been hold-
ing a kind of council without, that Arthur Jones and William
Danforth, as the two youngest members of the community,
should be dispatched to the nearest settlement to request aid
to-protect them from the Indians, whose immediate attack
they had good reason to fear.

artha, on hearing the names of the emissaries mentioned,
pag the cup she had been filling.

‘*Oh, not him—not them, I mean—they will be overtaken
and tomahawked by the way!” she exclaimed, turning to her
father with a look of affright. x

‘Let Mr. Danforth remain,” said Jones, advancing to the
table; ‘‘I will undértake the mission alone.”

Tears came into Martha’s eyes, and:she turned them re-
proachfully to her lover; but, full of his heroic resolution to
be tomahawked and comfortably scalped on his own respon-
sibility, he turned majestically, without deigning to meet the
tearful glance which was well calculated to mitigate his jeal-
ous wrath. i

Danforth, on being applied to, requested permisson to de-
fer his answer till the morning, and the hunters left the house
to divide the game, which had been forgotten in the general
excitement.

Danforth, who had lingered to the last, took up his cap,
and whispering good-night to Martha, left the house. The
poor girl scarcely heeded his departure. Her eyes filled with
tears, and seating herself on a settee which ran along one end
of the room, she folded her arms on a board which served as
a back, and burying her face upon them, wept violently.

As she remained in this position, she heard a familiar step

on the floor. Her heart beat quick, fluttered a moment, and
then settled to its regular pulsations again, for her lover had
seated himself beside her. Martha wiped the tears from her
eyes and remained quiet, for she knew that he had returned,
and with that knowledge, the spirit of coquetry had revived;
and when Jones, softened by her apparent sorrow—for he had
seen her parting with Danforth—put his hand softly under
her forehead and raised her face, the creature was laughing—
laughing at his folly, as he thought.

‘Martha, you are doing wrong—wrong to yourself and to
me,” said the ae lover, rising indignantly and tak-
ing his hat, with which he advanced to the door.

“Don’t go,” said Martha, turning her head till one cheek

 

 

only rested on her arm, and casting a glance, half-repentant,
half-comic, on her retreating lover; ‘‘don’t go off so; if you
do, you'll be very sorry for it.”

Jones hesitated—she became very serious—the tears sprun.
to her eyes, and she looked exceedingly penitent. He returne
to her side. Had he appealed to her feelings then—had he
spoken of the pain she had given him in her encouragement
of another, she would have acknowledged the fault with all
proper humility; but he did. no such thing—he was a com-
mon-sense man, and he resolved. to end his first love-quarrel
in.a common-sense manner, as if common-sense ever had any
thing to do with lovers’ quarrels. ‘‘ I will reason with her,”
he thought. ‘‘ He will say I have made him. very wretched,
and I will tell him I am very sorry,” she thought, )

“Martha,” he said, very deliberately, ‘‘ why do I find you
on terms of such familiarity with this Manhattan fellow?”

Martha was disappointed. He spoke quite too calmly, and
there, was a. sarcastic emphasis in the word ‘‘fellow,” that
roused her pride.. The lips, which had just begun to quiver
with'repentance, worked themselves into a pouting fullness,
till they resembled the rose-bud just as it bursts. into leaves.
Her rounded shoulder was turned pettishly toward her lover,
with the air of a spoiled child, and she replied that ‘‘ he was
always finding fault.”

‘Jones took her hand, and was proceeding in his. sensible
manner to convince her that she was wrong, and acted wildly,
foolishly, and with a careless disregard to her own happiness.

As might be expected, the beautiful rustic snatched her
hand away, turned her shoulder more decidedly on her lover,
and bursting into tears, declared that she would thank him if
he would stop scolding, and that she did not care if she never
set eyes on him again. ‘

He would have remonstrated. ‘‘ Do. listen to common
sense,” he said, extending his hand to take hers.

“T hate common-sense!” she exclaimed, dashing away his
hand; ‘‘I won’t hear any more of your lecturing—leave the
house, and never speak to me again as long as you live.”

Mr, Arthur Jones took up his hat, placed it deliberately on
his head, and walked out of the house. With a heavy heart
Martha watched his slender form ag it disappeared in the
darkness, and then stole away to her bed in the garret.

‘* He will call. inthe morning before he starts; he won’t
have the heart to go away without saying one word—I am sure
he won't,” she repeated to herself over and over again, as she
lay sobbing and weeping penitent tears on her pillow that

night. agi!

‘When William left the log tavern, he struck into the woods,
and took his course. toward the Pond. There was a moon,
but the'sky was clouded, and the little light which struggled
to the earth, was too faint to penetrate the thick foliage of
the wilderness. Danforth must have been. familiar, with the
track, for he found his way without difficulty through the
wilderness, and never stopped till he came out on the northern
brink of the Pond. | He looked anxiously over the face of the

little lake. The fitful moon had broken from a cloud, and |

was touching the tiny waves with beauty, while the broken,
rocky shore encompassed it with shadow, like a frame-work
of ebony. No speck was on its bosom; no sound was abroad,
but the evening breeze'as it rippled,on the waters, and made
a sweet whispering melody in the tree-tops.

Suddenly a light, as from a pine torch; was seen on a point
of land jutting out from the opposite shore. Another and
another flashed out, each bearing to a particular direction,
and then a myriad of flames rose high and bright, illumina-
ting the whole point, and shooting its fiery reflection, like a
meteor, almost across the bosom of the waters.

‘‘Yes, they are preparing for work,” muttered Danforth,
as he saw a crowd of painted warriors arrange themselves
around the camp-fire, each with his firelock ‘in his hand.
There was a general movement. Dark faces flitted in quick
succession between him and the blaze as the warriors per-
formed the heavy march, or, war-dance, which usually pre-
ceded the going out of a hostile party. . j

Danforth left the shore, and striking out in an oblique di-
rection, arrived, after half an hour of quick walking, at the
Indian encampment, He threaded his way through the clus-
ter of bark wigwams, till he came to one standing on the
verge of the inclosure. It was of logs, and erected with a
regard to comfort which the others wanted. The young hun-
ter drew aside the mat which hung over the entrance, and
looked in. A young Indian girl was sitting on a pile of, furs
at the opposite hos ace ly e wore no paint—her cheek was
round and smooth, and large, gazelle-like. eyes gave a soft
brilliancy to her countenance, beautiful beyond expression.

 

“ett I a

 
i

 

tit

 

 

MALAESKA, THE INDIAN WIFE OF THE WHITE HUNTER. 5

 

Her dress was a robe of dark chintz, open at the throat, and
confined at the waist by a narrow belt of wampum, which,
with the bead bracelets on her naked arms, and the embroid-
ered moccasins laced over her feet, was the only Indian orna-
ment about her. Even her hair, which all of her tribe wore
laden with ornaments, and hanging down the back, was
braided and wreathed in raven bands over her smooth fore-
head. An infant, almost naked, was lying in her lap, throw-
ing its unfettered limbs about, and lifting his little hands to
his mother’s mouth, as she rocked back and forth on her seat
of skins, chanting, in a sweet, mellow voice, the burden of an
Indian lullaby: As the form of the hunter darkened the en-
trance, the Indian girl started up with a look of affectionate
joy, and laying her child on the pile of skins, advanced to
meet him.

‘“Why did the white mam leave his woman so many nights?”
she said, in her broken English, hanging fondly about him;
‘“‘the boy and his mother have listened long for the sound of
his moccasins.”

Danforth passed his arm around the waist of his Indian
wife, and drawing her to him, bent his cheek to hers, as if
that slight caress was sufficient answer to her gentle greeting,
and so it was; her untutored heart, rich in its natural affec-
tions, had no aim no object, but what centered in the love she
bore her white husband. The feelings which in civilized life
are scattered over a thousand objects, were, in her bosom,
centered in one single being; he supplied the place of all the
high aspirations—of all the passions and sentiments which
are fostered into strength by society, and as her husband
bowed his head to hers, the blood darkened her cheek, and
her large liquid eyes were flooded with delight.

‘And what has Malaeska been doing since the boy’s father
went to the wood?” inquired Danforth, as she drew him to
the couch where the child was lying half buried in the rich fur.

‘‘Malaeska has been alone in the wigwam, watching the
shadow of the big pine. When her heart grew. sick, she
looked in the boy’s eyes and was glad,” replied the Indian
mother, laying the infant in his father’s arms.

Danforth kissed the child, whose eyes certainly bore a strik-
ing resemblance to his own; and parting the straight. black
hair from a forehead which scarcely bore a tinge of its
mother’s blood, muttered, ‘‘It’s a pity the little fellow is not
quite white.”

The Indian mother took the child, and with a look of proud
anguish, laid her finger on its cheek, which was rosy with
English blood.

“ Malaeska’s father is a great chief—the boy will be a chief
in her father’s tribe; but Malaeska never thinks of that when
she sees the white man’s blood come into the boy’s face.”
She turned mournfully to her seat again.

“He will make a brave chief,” said Danforth, anxious to
soften the effects of his inadvertent speech; ‘‘but tell me,
Malaeska, why have the warriors kindled the council fire? I
saw it blaze by the pond as I came by.”

Malaeska could only inform him that the body of a dead In-
dian had been brought to the encampment about dusk, and
that it was supposed he had been shot by some of the whites
from the settlement. She said that the chief had immediately
called a council to deliberate on the best means of revenging
their brother’s death. ;

Danforth had feared this movement in the savages, and ‘it
was to mitigate their wrath that he sought the encampment
at so late an hour. He had married the daughter of their
chief, and, consequently, was a man of considerable impor-
tance in the tribe. But he felt that his utmost exertions
might fail to draw them from their meditated vengeance, now
that one of their number had been slain by the whites, Feel-
ing the necessity of his immediate presence at the council, he
left the wigwam and proceeded at.a brisk walk to the brink
of the Pond. He came out of the thick forest which fringed
it a little above the point on which the Indians were collected.
Their dance was over, and from the few guttural tones which
reached him, Danforth knew that they were planning. the
death of some particular individuals, which was probably to
precede their attack on the settlement. The council-fire still
streamed high in the air, reddening the waters and lighting
up the trees and foreground with a beautiful effect, while the
rocky point seemed of emerald pebbles, so brilliant was the
reflection cast over it, and so distinctly did it display the

ainted forms of the savages as they sat in a circle round the
laze, each with his weapon lying idly by his side. The light
lay full on the glittering wampum and feathery crest of one

who was addressing them with more energy than is common
to the Indian warrior,

.

 

Danforth was too far off to collect a distinct hearing of the
discourse, but with a feeling of perfect security, he left the
deep shadow in which he stood, and approached the council-
fire. As the light fell upon him, the Indians leaped to their
feet, and a savage yell rent the air, as if.a company of fiends
had been disturbed in their orgies. Again and again was the
fierce cry reiterated, till the woods resounded with the wild
echo rudely summoned from the caves. As the young hun-
ter stood lost in astonishment at the strange commotion, he
was seized by the savages, and dragged before their chief,
while the group around furiously demanded vengeance, quick
and terrible, for the death of their slain brother. The truth
flashed upon the hunter’s mind. It was his death they had
been planning. It was he they supposed to be the slayer of
the Indian He remonstrated and declared himself guiltless of
the red-man’s death. It was in vain. He had been seen on
the mountain, by one of the tribe, not five minutes before the
dead body of the Indian was found. Almost in despair the
hunter turned to the chief.

‘‘ Am I not your son—the father of a young chief—one of
your own tribe?” he said, with appealing energy.

The saturnine face of the chief never changed, as he an-
swered in his own language: ‘‘ The red-man has taken a rattle-
snake to warm in his wigwam—the warrior shall erush his
head!” and with a fierce grin, he pointed to the pile of resin-
ous wood which the savages were heaping on the council-fire.

Danforth looked around on the group preparing for his des-
truction. Every dusky face was lighted up with a demoniac
thirst for blood, the hot flames quivering into the air, their
gorgeous tints amalgamating and shooting upward like a
spire of living rainbows, while a thousand fiery tongues, hiss-
ing and darting onward like vipers eager for their prey, licked
the fresh pine-knots heaped for the death-pyre. It was a
fearful sight, and the heart of the brave hunter quailed within
him as he looked. With another wild whoop, the Indians
seized their victim, and were about to strip him for the sacri-
fice. In their blind fury they tore him from the grasp of
those who held him, and were too intent on divesting him of
his clothes to remark that his limbs were free. But he was
not so forgetful. Collecting his strength for a last effort, he
struck the nearest savage a blow in the chest, which sent him
reeling among his followers, then taking advantage of the
confusion, he tore off his cap, and springing forward with
the bound of. an uncaged tiger, plunged into the lake. A
shout rent the air, and a score of dark heads broke the water
in pursuit. ‘

Fortunately, a cloud was over the moon, and the fugitive
remained under the water till he reached the shadow thrown
by the thickly-wooded bank, when, rising for a moment, he
supported himself and hurled his cap out toward the center
of the pond. The ruse succeeded, for the moon came ont, just
at the instant, and with renewed shouts the savages turned in
ports of the empty cap. Before they learned their mistake,

anforth had made considerable headway under the friendly
bank, and took to the woods just as the shoal of Indians’
heads entered the shadow in eager chase.

The fugitive stood for a moment on the brink of the forest,
irresolute, for he knew not which course to take. :

‘‘T have it; they will never think of looking for me there,”
he exclaimed, dashing through the undergrowth, and taking
the direction toward “‘the Straka.” The whoop of the pur-
suers smote his ear as they made the land. On, on he bound-
ed with the swiftness of a hunted stag, through swamp and
brushwood, and over rocks. He darted til] he came in sight
of his own wigwam. The sound of pursuit had died away,
and he began to hope that the savages had taken the track
which led to the settlement.

Breathless with exertions he entered the hut. The boy was
asleep, but his mother was listening for the return of her hus-

and.

‘‘Malaeska,” he said, catching her to his panting heart:
““Malaeska, we must part; your tribe seek my life; the war-
riors are on my tracknow—now! Do youhear their shouts?”
he added.

A wild whoop came up from the woods below, and forcing
back the arms she had flung about him, he seized a war-club
and stood ready for the attack.

Malaeska sprung to the door, and looked out with the air
of a frightened doe. Darting back to the pile of furs, she laid -
the sleeping child on the bare earth, and motioning her hus-
band to lie down, heaped the skins over his prostrate form; .
then taking the child in her arms, she stretched herself on the
ile, and drawing a bear-skin over her, pretended to be asleep.
he had scarcely composed herself, when three savages

 
Sg TST

Paes

  

6

 
 

entered the wigwam. One bore a blazing pine-knot, with
which he proceeded to search for the fugitive. While the
others were busy among the scanty furniture, he approached
the trembling wife, and after feeling about among the furs
without effect, lifted the bear-skin which covered her; but
her sweet face in apparent slumber, and the beautiful infant
lying across her bosom, were all that rewarded his search.

s if her beauty had power to tame the savage, he carefully
replaced the covering over her person, and speaking to his
companions, left the hut without attempting to disturb her
further.

Malaeska remained in her feigned slumber till she heard
the Indians take to the woods again. Then she arose and
lifted the skins from off her husband, who was nearly suffo-
cated under them. When he had regained his feet, she placed
the war-club in his hand, and taking up the babe, led the way
to the entrance of the hut. Danforth saw by the act, that she
intended to desert her tribe and accompany him in his flight.
He had never thought of introducing her as his wife among
the whites, and now that circumstances made it necessary for
dhim to part with her forever, or to take her among his people
for a shelter, a pang, such as he had never felt, came to his
heart. His affections struggled powerfully with his pride.
The picture of his disgrace—of the scorn with which his par-
ents and sisters would receive the Indian wife and half-In-
dian child, presented itself before him, and he had not the
moral courage to risk the degradation which her companion-
ship would bring upon him. These conflicting thoughts
flashed through his mind in an instant, and when his wife
aE ah at the door, and, looking anxiously in his face, beck-
oned him to follow, he said, sharply, for his conscience was
ill at, ease:

**Malaeska, I go alone; you and the boy must remain with
your people.”

His words had a withering effect on the poor Indian. Her
form drooped, and she raised her eyes with a look so mingled
with humiliation and reproach, that the hunter's heart thrilled
painfully in his bosom. Slowly, and as if her soul and
strength were paralyzed, she crept to her husband’s feet, and
sinking to her knees, held up the babe.

‘“Malaeska’s breast will die, and the boy will have no one
to feed him,” she said.

That beautiful child—that young mother kneeling in her:

humiliation—those large dark eyes, dim with the intensity of
her solicitude, and that voice so full of tender entreaty—the
husband’s heart could not withstand them. His ibodbin
heaved, tears gathered in his eyes, and raising the Indian and
her child to his bosom, he kissed them both again ‘and
again.

' “Malaeska,” he said, folding her close to his heart, ‘‘ Mal-
aeska, I must go now; but when seven suns have ‘passed, I
will come again; or, if the tribe still seek my life, take the
child and come to the settlement. I shall be there.”

The Indian woman bowed her head in humble submission.

“The white man is good. Malaeska will come,” she said.

One more embrace, and the poor Indian wife was alone
with her child.

Poor Martha Fellows arose early, and waited with nervous
impatience for the appearance of her lover; but the morning
passed, the hour of noon drew near, and he came not. The
heart of the maiden grew heavy, and when her father came
in to dine, her eyes were red with weeping, and a cloud of
Se aban sorrow and petulance darkened her handsome face.
She longed to question her father about Jones, but he had
twice replenished his brown earthen bow] with pudding and
milk, before she could gather courage to speak.

“* Have ct seen Arthur Jones this morning?” she at length
questioned in a low, timid voice.

The answer she received, was quite sufficient punishment
for all her coquettish folly of the previous night. Jones had
left the settlement—left it in anger with her, without a word
of explanation—without even saying farewell. It really was
hard. The little coquette had the heart-ache terribly, till he
frightened it away by telling her of the adventure which Dan-
forth had met with among the Indians, and of his departure
with Arthur Jones in search of aid’ from’ the nearest  settle-
ment. The old mam gloomily added, that the savages would
doubtless burn the houses over their heads, and massacre
every living being Within them, long before the two brave
fellows would return with men. Such, indeed,.were the ter-
tible fears of almost every one in the little neighborhood.
Their apprehensions, however, were premature. Part of the
Indian tribe had gone out on a hunting-party among the hills
and were ignorant of the fatal shot with which Jones ha

 

 

 

NEW AND OLD FRIENDS.

arcused the animosity of their brethren; while those who re-
mained, were dispersed in a fruitless pursuit after Danforth.

On the afternoon of the fifth day after the departure of
their emissaries, the whites began to see unequivocal symp-
toms of an attack; and now their fears did not deceive them.
The hunting-party had returned to their encampment, and
the detached parties were gathering around “‘the Straka.”

About dark, an Indian appeared in the skirts of the clear-
ing, as if to spy out the position of the whites. Soon aftera
shot was fired at the Englishman, before mentioned, as he re-
turned from his work, which passed through the crown of his
hat. That hostilities were commencing, was now beyond a
doubt, and the males of the settlement met in solemn con-
clave, to devise measures for the defense of their wives and
children. Their slender preparations were soon made; all
were gathered around one of the largest houses in gloomy ap-
prehension; the women and children within, and the men
standing in front, sternly resolving to die in the defense of
their loved ones. Suddenly there came up a sound from the
wood, the trampling of many feet, and the crackling of brush-
wood, as if some large body of men were forcing a wa
through the tangled forest. The women bowed their pallid
faces, and gathering their children in their arms, waited ap-
palled for the attack. The men stood ready, each grasping
his weapon, their faces pallid, and their eyes kindled with
stern courage, as they heard the stifled groans of the loved
objects cowering behind them for protection. The sound
became nearer and more distinct; dark forms were seen dimly
moving among the trees, and then a file of men came out into
the clearing. They were whites, led on by William Danforth
and Arthur Jones. The settlers uttered a boisterous shout,
threw down their arms, and ran in a body to meet the new-
comers. The women sprung to their feet, some weeping,
others laughing in hysterical joy, and sll embracing their
children with frantic energy.

Neyer were there more welcome guests than the score of
weary men who refreshed themselves in the various houses of
the settlement that night. Sentinels were placed, and each
settler returned to his dwelling, accompanied by three or
four guests; every heart beat high, save one—Martha Fellows,
she, poor girl, was sad among the general rejoicing; her lover
had not spoken to her, though she lingered near his side in
the crowd, and had once almost touched him. Instead of
going directly to her father’s house, as had been his custom,
he accepted the Englishman’s invitation, and departed to
sleep in his dwelling.

Now this same Englishman had a niece residing with him,
who was considered by some to be more beautiful than Mar-
tha herself. The humble maiden thought of Jones, and of
the bright blue eyes of the English girl, till her heart burned
with the same jealous feelings she had so ridiculed in her
lover.

‘‘T will ste him! I will see them both!” she exclaimed,
starting up from the settle where she had remained, full of
eae anxiety, since the dispersing of the crowd; and un-
needed by her father, who was relating his hunting exploits
to the five strangers quartered on him, she dashed away her
tears, threw a shawl over her head, and taking a cup, as an
excuse for borrowing something, left the house.

The Englishman’s dwelling stood on the outward verge of
the clearing, just within the shadow of the forest. Martha
had almost reached the entrance, when a dark form rushed
from its covert in the brushwood, and rudely seizing her,
darted back into the wilderness. The terrified girl uttered
a fearful shriek; for the fierce eyes gazing down upon her,
were those of a savage. She could not repeat the cry, for the
wretch crushéd her form to his naked chest with a grasp of
iron, and winding his hand in her hair, was about to dash her
to the ground. That moment a bullet whistled by her cheek.
The Indian tightened his‘hold with spasmodic violence, stag-
gered back, and fell to the ground, still girding her in his
death-grasp; a moment he writhed in mortal agony—warm
blood gushed over his victim—the heart under her struggled
fiercely in its last throes; then the lifeless arms relaxed, and
she lay fainting on a corpse.

 
 

ne ag A

—— ee

 

MALAESKA, THE INDIAN WIFE OF THE WHITE HUNTER. 7

CHAPTER III.

He lay upon the trampled ground,’
, “She knelt beside him there,
While a crimson stream gushed slowly
’Neath the parting of his hair,
His head was on her bosom thrown
She sobb’d his Christian name—
He smiled, for still he knew her, :
And strove to do the same.—Frank Lex Benepicr.

“On, Arthur! dear Arthur, Iam glad it was you that saved
me,” whispered Martha, about’ an hour after her rescue, as
she lay on the settle in her father’s house, with Arthur Jones
bending anxiously over her.

Jones dropped the hand he had been holding and turned
away with troubled features.

Martha looked at him, and her eyes were brimming with
tears. ‘‘Jones,” she said humbly, and very ‘affectionately,
‘Jones, I did wrong the other night, and I am’ sorry for it;
will you forgive me?”

‘“‘T will—but never again—never, as I live,” he replied, with
a stern determination in his manner, accompanied by a look
that humbled her to the heart. In after years, when Martha
was Arthur Jones’ wife, and when the stirrings of vanity
would have led her to trifle with his feelings, she remembered
that look, and dared not brave it a second time.

At sunrise, the next morning, an armed force went into the
forest, composed of all who could be spared from the settle-
ment, amounting to about thirty fightingamen. The Indians,
encamped about ‘‘ the Straka,” more than doubled that num-
ber, yet the handful of brave whites resolved to offer them a
decisive combat.

The little band was approaching the north-eastern extremity
of the Pond, when they halted fora moment to rest. The
spot on which they stood was level, and thinly timbered.
Some were sitting on the grass, and others leaning on their
guns, consulting on their future movements, when a fiendish
yell arose like the howl of a thousand wild beasts, and, as if
the very earth had yawned to emit them, a band of warriors
sprung up in appalling numbers, on the front.and rear, and
approaching them, three abreast, fired into the group with
terrible slaughter.

The whites returned their fire, and the sounds of murder-
ous. strife were indeed horrible. Sternly arose the white
man’s shout amid the blazing of guns and the whizzing toma-
hawks, as they flashed through the air on their message of
blood. Above all burst out the war-whoop of the savages,
sometimes rising hoarse, and like the growling of a thousand
bears; then, as. the barking of as many wolves, and again,
sharpening to the shrill, unearthly cry of a tribe of wildcats.
Oh, it was fearful that scene of slaughter. Heart to heart,
and muzzle to muzzle, the white and red-man battled in hor-
rid strife. The trees above them drooped under a cloud of
smoke, and their trunks were scarred with gashes, cut by the
tomahawks which had missed their more deadly aim. The

round was burdened with the dead, and yet the strife raged
an and fiercer till the going down of the sun.

In.the midst of the fight was William Danforth. Many a
dusky form bit the dust, and many a savage howl followed
the discharge of his trusty gun. But at length it became foul
with continued use, and he went to the brink of the Pond to
wash it. He was stooping to the water, when the dark form
of an Indian chief cast its shadow a few feet from him. He,
too, had come down to clean his gun. The moment be had
accomplished his purpose, he turned to the white man, who
had been to him as a son, and drawing his muscular form up
to its utmost, hight, uttered a defiance in the Indian tongue.
Instantly the weapons of both were loaded and discharged.
The tall form of the’ chief wavered unsteadily for a moment
and fell forward, half its length, into the Pond: | Hestrove to
rise. His hands dashed wildly on the crimson water, the
blows grew fainter, and the chief was dead.

The setting sun fell brilliantly over the glittering raiment
of the prostrate chief—his long, black hair streamed out upon
the water, and the tiny waves rippled playfully among the

orgeous feathers which had been his savage crown. A little
oe , on the green bank, lay Danforth, wounded unto death.
He strove to creep to the battle-field, but the blood gushed
afresh from his wounds, and he fell back upon the earth faint
and in despair. :

The savages retreated; the sounds of strife became more
distant, and the poor youth was left alone with-the body of
the slain warrior. e made one more desperate effort,
and secured the gun which had belonged to the chief: though
faint with loss of blood, he loaded that as well as his own,

and placing them beside him, resolved to defend the remnant

 

of life, yet quivering at his heart, to the last moment. The
sun went slowly down; the darkness fell like a vail over the

‘ lake, and there he lay, wounded and alone, in the solitude of
the wilderness. Solemn and. regretful were the thoughts of
the forsaken man as that night of agony went’ by. Now his
heart lingered with strange and terrible dread around the
shadowy portals of eternity which were cyt before him;
again‘it turned with a strong feeling of self-condemnation to
his Indian wife and ‘the infant pledge of the great love which
~~ made him almost forsake kindred and people for their
sakes.

The moon arose, and the dense shadow of a hemlock, beneath
which he had fallen, lay within a few feet of him like the
wing of a great bird, swayed slowly forward with an imper-
ceptible and yet certain progress. The eyes of the dying man.
were fixed on the margin of the shadow with a keen, intense
gaze. There was something terrible in its stealthy creeping
and silent advance, and he strove to elude it as if it had been
a living thing; but with every motion the blood gushed afresh
from his heart, and he fell back upon the sod, his white teeth.
clenched with pain, and his hands clutched deep into the
damp moss. “Still his keen eyes glittered in the moonlight
with the fevered workings of pain and imagination. The.
shadow on which they turned was to him no shadow, but now
a nest of serpents, creeping with their insidious coils toward
him; and again, a pall—a black funeral pall, dragged forward,
by invisible spirits, and about to shut him out from the light
forever. Slowly and surely it crept across his damp forehead
and over his glowing eyes. His teeth unclenched, his hands
relaxed, and a gentle smile broke over his pale lips, when he
felt with what a cool and spirit-like touch it visited him. Just
then.a human shadow mingled with that of the tree, and the
wail of a child broke on the still night air. The dying hun-
ter struggled and strove to cry out—‘t Malaeska—Ma—Ma—
Mala—” {

The poor Indian girl heard the voice, and witha cry, half of
frenzied joy and half of fear, sprung to his side. She flung
her child on the-grass and lifted her dying husband to her
heart, and kissed his damp forehead in a wild, eager agony of
sorrow. aid |

‘‘Malaeska,” said the young man, striving to wind hisarms
about her, ‘‘my poor girl, what will become of you? Ob
God! who will take care of my boy?”

The Indian girl pushed back the damp hair from his fore-
head, and looked wildly down into. his face. A shiver ran
through her frame when she saw the cold, gray shadows of
death gathering there; then her black eyes kindled, her beau-

_ tiful lip curved to an expression more lofty than a smile, her
small hand pointed to the West, and the wild religion of her
race gushed up from her heart, a stream of living poetry.

‘“The hunting-ground of the Indian is yonder, among the
purple clouds of the evening. The stars are very thick there,
and the red light: is heaped together like. mountains in. the
heart of a forest. The sugar-maple gives its waters all the
year round, and the breath of the deer is sweet, for it feeds
on the golden spire-bush and the ripe berries. A lake of
bright waters is there. The Indian’s canoe flies over it like a
bird high up in the morning. .The West has rolled back its
clouds, and a great chief has passed through. He will hold
back the clouds that his white son. may go up to the face of
the Great Spirit. Malaeska and her boy will follow. The
blood of the red-man is high in her heart, and the way is
open. The lake is deep, and the arrow sharp; death will
come when Malaeska calls him. Love will make her voice
sweet in the land of the Great Spirit; the white man will hear
it, and call her to his bosom again!”

A faint, sad smile flitted over the dying hunter’s face, and
her voice was choked with pain which was not death. ‘‘M
poor girl,” he said, feebly, drawing her kindling face to his
lips, ‘‘there is no great, hunting-ground, as you dream. . The
whites have another faith, and—oh, God! I have taken away
her trust, and have none to give in return!”

The Indian’s face drooped forward, the light of her wild,
oetic faith had departed with the hunter’s last words, and a
eeling of cold desolation settled on her heart. He was dying

on her bosom, and she knew not where he was going, nor
that their parting might not be eternal. :

The dying man’s lips moved as if in prayer. ‘‘ Forgive me,
oh Father of mercies! forgive me that I have left this poor
girl in her heathen ignorance,” he murmured, faintly, and his
lips continued to move though there was no perceptible sound.
After a few moments of exhaustion, he fixed his eyes on the
Indian girl’s face with a look of solemn and touching earnest-
ness, ee

7

 
    

 

.

8

 

‘‘Malaeska,” he said, ‘‘ talk not of putting yourself and the
boy to death. That would be asin, and God would punish
it. To meet me in another world, Malaeska, you must learn
fo love the white man’s God, and wait patiently till he shall
gend you to me. Go not back to your ttibe when I am. dead.
Down at the mouth of the great river até many whites;
among them are my father aad mother. Find your way to
them, tell them how their son died, and beseech them to
cherish you and the boy for his sake. Tell them how much
he loved. you, my poor girl. Tell them—I can not talk more.
There is a girl at the settlement, one Martha Fellows; go to
her. She knows of you, and has papers—a letter to my
father. I did not expect this, but had Drohiares for it. Go to
her—you will do this?—promise, while I can understand.”

_ Malaeska had not wept till now, but her voice was choked,
and tears fell like rain over the dying man’s face as she made
the promise.
_ He tried to thank her, but the effort died away in a faint
‘smile and a tremulous motion of the white lips‘! Kiss me,
Malaeska.”
° The request was faint as a breath of air, but Malaeska heard
it. She flung herself on his bosom with a passionate burst of
rief, and her lips clung to his as if they would have drawn
him back from the very grave. She felt the cold lips moving
beneath the despairing pressure of hers, and lifted her head.

“The boy, Malaeska: let me look on my son.”

The child had crept to his mother’s side, and crouching on
his hands and knees, sat with his large black eyes filled with a
anne awe, gazing on the white face of his father. Mala-
eska drew him closer, and with instinctive feelings he wound
his arms round the neck, and nestled his face close to the
asn¥ cheek of the dying man. There was a faint motion of
the hands as if the father would have embraced his child, and
then all was still. After a time, the child felt the cheek be-
neath his waxing hard and cold. He lifted his head and
pored with breathless wonder over the face of his father’s
corpse. He looked up at his mother. She, too, was bending
intently over the face of the dead, and her eyes were full of
a wild, melancholy light. The child was bewildered. He
passed his tiny hand once more over the cold face, and then
crept away, buried his head in the folds of his mother’s dress,
and began to cry. 5 i

Morning dawned upon the little lake, quietly and still, as
if nothing but the dews of heaven and the flowers of earth
had ever tasted its freshness; yet all under the trees, the ten-
der grass and the white blossoms, were crushed to the ground,
stained and trampled in human blood. The delicious light
broke, like a smile from heaven, over the still bosom of the
waters, and flickered cheeringly through the dewy branches
of the hemlock which shadowed the prostrate hunter. Bright
dew-drops lay thickly on his dress, and gleamed, like ashower
of seed pearls, in his rich, brown hair. The green moss on
either side was soaked with a crimson stain, and the pale,
leaden hue of dissolution had settled on his features. He
was not alone; for on the same mossy couch lay the body of
the slaughtered chief; the limbs were composed, as if on a
bier—the hair wiped smooth, and the crescent of feathers,
broken and wet, were arranged with care around his bronzed
temples. A little way off, on a hillock, purple with flowers,
lay a beautiful child, beckoning to the birds as they fluttered
by—plucking up the flowers, and uttering his tiny shout of

fedireany as if death and sorrow were not all around him.
Phere, by the side of the dead hunter, sat Malaeska, the
widow, her hands dropping nervously by her side, her long
hair sweeping the moss, and her face bowed on her bosom,
stupefied with the overwhelming poignancy of her. rief.
‘Thus she remained, motionless and lost in sorrow, till the
day was at its noon. Her child, hungry and tired with play,
had cried itself to sleep among the flowers; but the mother
knew it’not—her heart and all her faculties seemed closed as
with a portal of ice. $ ;

That night when the moon was up, the Indian widow dug
‘a grave, with her own hands, on the green margin of the lake.

She laid her husband and her father side by side, and piled

gods upon them. Then she lifed the wretched and hungry
babe from the earth, and with a heavy heart, bent her way to
‘the Straka.”

£90)

NEW AND OLD FRIENDS,

 

CHAPTER. I11.

The sunset fell in z se) et
Ruddy as gold could er er tia

While russet brown and a crimson gleam,
Slept in each forest-tree;

But the heart of the Indian wife was sad

Witte her Loy's yours leugh rose high and glad,
When the wild birds o'er them flew. raise

Marra Feviows and her lover were alone in her father’s
cabin on the night after the Indian engagement. They were’
both paler than usual, and too anxious about the safety of
their village for any thing like happiness, or tranquil conver-
sation. The old man had been stationed as sentinel on the
verge of the ee: and as the two sat together in silence,
with hands interlocked, and paring wistfully in each other’s
faces, a rifle-shot cut sharply from the old man’s station. They
both started“to their feet, and Martha clung shriekiag to her
lover. Jones forced her back to the settle—and, matching
his rifle, sprung to the door. There'wasa sound of approach-
ing footsteps, and with it was mingled the voice of old Fel-
lows, and the sweeter and more imperfect tones of a female,
with the sobbing breath of a child. As Jones stood wonder-
ing at the strange sound, a remarkable group darkened the
light which streamed from the cabin-door. ft was Felows
partly supporting and partly dragging forward a pale and 'ter-
tified Indian girl, The light glittered upon her picturesque
raiment, and revealed the dark, bright eyes of a child which
was fastened to her back, and which clung te: her neck silent
with terror and exhaustion.

‘Come along, you young porcupine! Yow skulking cop-
per-colored little squaw, you! We shan’t kill you, nor the
little pappoose, neither; so you needn’t shake so. Come
alomg! There’s Martha Fellows, if ae can find enough of
your darnationed queer English to tell her what you want.”

As he spoke, the rough, but kind-hearted old man entered
the hut, pushing the wretched Malaeska and her ehild before

im.

“ Martha!. why what in the name of nature makes you look
so white about the mouth? You needn’t be afraid of this lit-
tle varmint, nohow. She’s as harmless as a garter-snake.
Come, see if you can find out what she wants of you. She
can talk the drollest you ever heard. But I’ve scared away
her senses, and she only stares: at me like a shot deer.”

When the Indian heard the name of the astonished girl,
into whose presence she had been dragged, she withdrew from
the old man’s grasp and stole timidly toward the settle.

‘““The white man left papers with the maiden—Malaeska

only wants the papers,” she pleaded, placing her small palms |

beseechingly together.

Martha turned still more pale, and started to her feet. ‘‘It
is true then,” she said, almost wildly. ‘Poor Danforth is
dead, and these forlorn creatures, his widow and child, have
come to me at last. Oh! Jones, he was telling me of this tho
nigit you got so angry. I could not tell you why we were
talking so much together; but I knew all the time that he had
an Indian wife—it seemed as if he had'a forewarning of his
death, and must tell some one. The last time I saw him, he
gave me.a letter, sealed with black, and bade me seek his
wife, and persuade her to carry it tohis father, if he was
killed in the fight. It is that letter she has come after; but
how will she find the way to Manhattan?”

‘‘Malaeska knows which way ‘the waters run: she can: find:
a path down the big river. Give her the papers, that she:
may ii pleaded the sad voice of the Indian.

“ell us first,” said Jones, addressing her kindly, ‘“‘have
the Indians left our neighborhood? Is there no danger of an
attack?”

‘The white man need not fear. When the great chief
died, the smoke of his wigwam went out; and his people
have gone beyond the mountains. Malaeska is alone.”

There was wretchedness and touching pathos in the poor
girl’s speech, that ‘affected the little group even to tears.

“No you ain’t, by gracious!” exclaimed Fellows, dashing
his band across his eyes. ‘‘ You shall stay and live with me,
and help Matt, you shall—and that’s the end on’t. Ill make
a farmer of the little pappoose. I'll bet‘a beaver-skin that
he'll Yarn to gee and haw the oxen and hold plow afore’ half
‘the Dutch boys that are springing up here as thick as clover-
tops in a third year’s clearing.” ie ;

 Malaeska did not perfectly understand the kind settler’s
proposition; the tone and manner were kindly, and she knew
that he wished to help her.

‘‘ When the boy’s father was dying, he told Malaeska to go
to his people, and they would tell her how to find the white

 

 

 

——

 

 

 
 

aad meena

 

—— =e

 

 

 

 

Indian.

MALAESKA, THE INDIAN WIFE OF THE WHITE HUNTER. 9

man’s God. Give her the papers, and she will go. Her heart
will be full when she thinks of the kind words and the soft
looks which the white chief and the bright-haired maiden
have given her.” s

‘“She goes to fulfill a promise to the dead—we ought not
to prevent her,” said Jones,

Malaeska turned her eyes eagerly and gratefully upon him
as he spoke, and Martha went to her bed and drew the letter,
which had been intrusted to her care, from beneath the pil-
low. The Indian took it between her trembling hands, and
pressing it with a gesture almost of idolatry to her lips, thrust
it into her bosom.

“The white maiden is good! Farewell!” she turned to-
ward the door as she spoke.

“Stay! It will take mane days to reach Manhattan—take
something to eat, or you will starve on the way,” said Martha,
compassionately.

‘Malaeska has her bow and arrow, and she can use them;
but she thanks the white maiden. A piece of bread for the
boy—he has cried to his mother many times for food; but her
bosom was full of tears, and she had none to give him.”

Martha ran to the cupboard and brought forth a large frag-
ment of bread and a cup.of milk. When the child saw the
food, he uttered a soft, hungry murmur, and his little fingers
began to work eagerly on his mother’s neck. Martha held
the cup to his lips, and smiled through her tears to see how
hungrily he swallowed, and with what a satisfied and pleased
look his large black eyes were turned up to hers as he drank.
When the cup was withdrawn, the boy breathed a deep sigh
of satisfaction, and let his head fall sleepily on his mother’s
shoulder; her large eyes seemed full of moonlight, and a
gleam of pleasure shot athwart her sad features; she unbound
a bracelet of wampum from her arm and placed it in Martha’s
hand. The next instant she was lost in the darkness without.
The kind settler rushed out, and hallooed for her to come
back; but her step was like that of a fawn, and while he was
wandering fruitlessly around the settlement, she reached the
margin of the creek; and, unmooring a canoe, which lay con-
cealed in the sedge, placed herself in it, and shot round the
point to the broad bosom of the Hudson.

Night and morning, for many successive days, that frail
canoe glided down the current, amid the wild and beautiful
scenery of the Highlands, and along the park-like shades of a
more level country. ‘There was something in the sublime and
lofty handiwork of God which fell soothingly on the sad
heart of the Indian. Her thoughts were continually dwelling
on the words of her dead husband, ever picturing to them-
selves the land of spirits where he had promised that she
should join him. The perpetual change of scenery, the sun-
shine playing with the foliage, and the dark, heavy masses of
shadow, tlung from the forest and rocks on either hand, were

continually exciting her untamed imagination to comparison _

with the heaven of her wild fancy. It seemed, at. times, as
if she had but.to close her eyes and open them again to be in
the presence of her lost one. There was something heavenly
in the solemn, perpetual flow of the river, and in the music
of the leaves as they rippled to the wind, that went to the
poor widow’s heart like the soft voice of afriend. After a
day or two, the gloom which hung about her young brow
partially departed. Her cheek again dimpled to the happy
laugh of her child, and when he nestled down to sleep in the
furs at the bottom of the canoe, her soft, plaintive lullaby
would steal over the waters like the song of a wild bird seek-
ing in vain for its mate. f
alaeska never went on shore, except to gather wild fruit,
and occasionally to kill a bird, which her true arrow seldom
failed to bring down. She would strike a fire and prepare
her game in some shady nook by the river-side, while the
canoe swung at it8 mooring, and her child played on the fresh
, shouting at the cloud of summer insects that flashed by,
and Shaping his tiny hands at the humming-birds that came
to rifle honey from the flowers that surrounded him.
The voyage was one of strange happiness to the widowed
Sepa did Christian believe in the pages of Divine
Writ with more of trust, than she placed in the dying promise
of her husband, that she should meet him again in another
world. His spirit seemed forever about her, and to her wild,
free imagination, the passage down the magnificent stream
seemed a material and glorious path to the white man’s
heaven. Filled with strange, sweet thoughts, she looked
abroad on the mountains looming up from the banks of the
river—on the forest-trees so various in their tints and so
richly clothed, till she was inspired almost to forgetfulness
of her affliction. She was young and healthy, and every

 

thing about her was so lovely, so grand and changing, that...

her heart expanded to the sunshine like a flower which has
been bowed down, but not crushed beneath the force of a
storm. Part of each day she spent in a wild, dreamy state of
imagination. Her mind was lulled to sweet musings by the
gentle sounds that hoyered in the air from morning till even-
ing, and through the long night, when all was hushed save
the deep flow of the river. Birds came out with their cheer-
ful voices at dawn, and at midday she floated in the cool
shadow of the hills, or shot into some cove for a few hours’
rest. When the sunset shed its gorgeous dyes over the river
—and the mountain ramparts, on either side, were crimson
as with the track of contending armies—when the boy was
asleep, and the silent stars came out to kindle up her night
path, then a clear, bold melody gushed from the mother’s
lips like a song from the heart of a nightingale. Her eye
kindled, her cheek grew warm, the dip of her paddle kept a
liquid accompaniment to her rich, wild voice, as the canoe
floated downward on the waves that seemed rippling over a
world of crushed blossoms, and were misty with the approach
of evening.

Malaeska had been out many days, when the sharp gables ;

and the tall chimneys of Manhattan broke upon her view,
surrounded by the sheen of its broad bay, and by the forest
which covered the uninhabited part of the island. The poor
Indian gazed upon it with an unstable but troublesome fear.
She urged her canoe into a little cove on the Hoboken shore,
and her heart grew heavy as the grave, as she pondered on
the means of fulfilling her charge. She took the letter from
her bosom; the tears started to her eyes, and she kissed it

with a regretful sorrow, asif a friend were about to be rend-.

ered up from her affections forever. | She took the child to
her heart, and held him there till its throbbings grew audible,
and the strength of her misgivings could not be restrained,
After a time she became more calm. She lifted the child from
her bosom, laved his hands and face in the stream, and brush-
ed his black hair with her palm till it glowed like the neck of

araven. Then she girded his little crimson robe with a string .

of wampum, and after arranging her own attire, shot the
canoe out of the cove and urged it slowly across the mouth
of the river. Her eyes were full of tears all the way, and
when the child murmured, and strove to comfort her with
his oe caress, she sobbed aloud, and rowed steadily for-
ward.

It was a strange sight to the phlegmatic inhabitants of Man-
hattan, when Malaeska passed through their streets in full
costume, and with the proud, free tread of her race. Her
hair hung in long braids down her back, each braid fastened
at the end with a tuft of scarlet feathers. A coronet of the
same bright plumage circled her small head, and her robe.
was gorgeous with beads, and fringed with porcupine-quills.
A bow of exquisite workmanship was in her hand, and a'scarf

of scarlet cloth bound the boy to her back. Nothing could

be more strikingly beautiful than the child. His, spirited
head was continually turning from one strange object.to an-
other, and his bright black eyes were brim-full of, childish

wonder. One little arm was flung around his young mother’s.

neck, and its fellow rested on the feathered arrow-shafts
which crowded the quiver slung against her left.shoulder.
The timid, anxious look of the mother, was in strong contrast
with the eager gaze of the boy. She had caught much of the

- delicacy and refinement of civilized life from her husband,

and her manner became startled and fawn-like beneath the
rude gaze of the passers-by. The modest blood burned in
her cheek, and the sweet, broken English trembled on her
lips, when several persons, to whom. she speed the letter,
passed by without answering her. She did not know that,
they were of another nation than her husband, and spoke an-
other language than that which love had taught her. At
length she accosted an aged man who could comprehend her
imperfect language. He read the name on the letter, and saw
that it was addressed to his master, John Danforth, the rich-
est fur-trader in Manhattan. The old serving-man led the
way to a large, irregular building, in the vicinity of what is
now Hanover Square. Malaeska followed with a light tread.
and a heart relieved of its fear. She felt that she had found
a friend in the kind old man who was conducting her to the
home of her husband’s father. : or
The servant entered this dwelling and led the way to alow
parlor, paneled with oak and lighted with small panes of
thick, greenish glass. A series of Dutch tiles—some of them
most exquisite in finish and design, surrounded the fire-place,
and a coat-of-arms, elaborately carved in oak, stood out in
strong relief from the paneling above. A carpet, at that time

.
Nn

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i
|
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{

 

 

   

10

NEW AND OLD FRIENDS.

 

an uncommon luxury, covered a greater portion of the floor,
and the furniture was rich in its material and ponderous with
heavy carved work. A tall, and rather hard-featured man
sat in an arm-chair by one of the narrow windows, reading a
file of papers which had just arrived in the last merchant-ship
from London. ~A little distance from him, a slight and very
thin lady of about fifty was occupied with household sewing;
her work-box stood on a small table before her, and a book
of common-prayer lay beside it. The servant had intended
to announce his strange guest, but, fearful of losing sight of
him, Malaeska followed close upon his footsteps, and before
he was aware of it, stood within the room, holding her child
by the hand.

“A woman, sit—an Indian woman, with a letter,” said the
embarrassed servant, motioning his charge to draw back.
But Malaeska had stepped close to the merchant, and was
looking earnestly in his face when he raised his eyes from the
papers.’ There was something cold in his severe gaze as he
fixed it on her through his spectacles. The Indian felt chilled
and repulsed; her heart was full, and she turned with a look
of touching appeal to the lady. That face was one to which
a child would have fled for comfort; it was tranquil and full
of kindness, Malaeska’s face brightened as she went up to
her, and placed the letter in her hands without speaking a
word; but the palpitation of her heart was visible through
her heavy garments, and her hands shook as she relinquished
the precious paper.

“The seal is black,” said the lady, turning very pale as she
gave the letter to her husband, ‘‘but it is Azs writing,” she
added, with a forced smile. ‘‘He could not have sent word
himself, were he—ill.”” She hesitated at the last word, for,
spite of herself, the thoughts of death lay heavily at her
heart.

The merchant composed himself in his chair, settled his
spectacles, and after another severe glance at the bearer,
opened the letter. His wife kept her eyes fixed on his face
ashe read. She saw that his face grew pale, that his high,
narrow forehead contracted, and that stern mouth became
still more rigid in its expression. She knew that some evil
had befallen her son—her only son, and she grasped a chair
for support; her lips were bloodless, and her eyes becante
keen with agonizing suspense. When her husband had read
the letter through, she went close to him, but looked another
way as she spoke.

“Tell me! has any harm befallen my son?” Her voice was
low and gentle, but with husky suspense.

Her husband did not answer, but his hand fell heavily upon
his knee, and the letter rattled in his unsteady grasp, his eyes
were fixed on his trembling wife with a look that chilled her
to the heart. She attempted to withdraw the letter from his
hand, but he clenched it the firmer.

‘*Let it alone—he is dead—murdered by the savages—why
should you know more?”

The poor woman staggered back, and the fire of anxiety
went out from her eyes. :

‘©Can there be any thing worse than death—the death of
the first-born of our youth—cut off in his proud manhood?”
she murmured, in a low, broken voice.

‘Yes, woman!” said the husband, almost fiercely; ‘‘ there
is a thing worse than death—disgrace!”

“Disgrace coupled with my son? Youare his father, John.
Do not slander him now that he is dead—before his mother,
too.” There was a faint, red spot then upon that mild wo-
man’s face, and her mouth curved proudly as she spoke. All
that was stern in her nature had been aroused by the implied
charge against the departed.

“Read, woman, read! Look on that accursed wretch and

her child! They haye enticed him into their savage haunts,
and murdered him. Now they come to claim protection and
reward for the foul deed.”
““Malaeska drew her child closer to her as she listened to this
vehement language, and shrunk slowly back toa corner of
the room, where she crouched, like a frightened hare, looking
wildly about, as if seeking some means to evade the venge-
ance which seemed to threaten her.

After the first storm of feeling, the old man buried his face
in his hands and remained motionless, while the sobs of his
wife, as she read her son’s letter, alone broke the stillness of
the room. ,

Malaeska felt those tears as an encouragement, and her own
deep feelin a her how to reach those of another. She
drew timidly to the mourner and sunk at her feet.

“Will the white woman look upon Malaeska?”’ she said, in
a voice full of humility and touching carnestness. ‘She

 

loved the young white chief, and when the shadows fell upon
his soul, he said that his mother’s heart would grow soft to the
poor Indian woman who had slept in his bosom while she was
very young. He said that her love would open to his oe
like a flower to the sunshine. Will the white woman loo
upon the boy? He is like his father.”

“Be is, poor child, he is!” murmured the bereaved mother,
looking on the boy through her tears—‘‘like him, as he was
when we were both young, and he the blessing of our hearts.
Oh, John, do you remember his smile?—how his cheek would
dimple when we kissed it! Look upon this poor, fatherless
creature; they are all here again; the sunny eye and the broad
forehead. Look upon him, John, for my sake—for the sake
of our'dead son, who prayed us with his last breath to love
his son. Look upon him!”

The kind woman led the child to her husband as she spoke,
and resting her arm on his shoulder, pressed her lips upon
his swollen temples. The pride of his nature was touched.
His bosom heaved, and tears gushed through his rigid fingers.
He felt a little form draw close to his knee, and a tiny, soft
hand strive with its feeble might to uncover his face.. The
voice of nature was strong within him. His hands dropped,
and he pored with a troubled face over the uplifted features
of the child.

Tears were in those young, bright eyes as they returned his
grandfather’s gaze, but when a softer expression came into
the old man’s face, a smile broke through them, and the little
fellow lifted both his arms and clasped them over the bowed
neck of his grandfather. There was a momentary struggle,
and then the merchant folded the boy to his heart with a
burst of strong feeling such as his iron nature had seldom
known.

“‘He 7s like his father. Let the woman go back to’ her
tribe; we will keep the boy.”

Malaeska sprung forward, clasped her hands, and turned
with an air of wild heart-thrilling appeal to the lady.

“You will not send Malaeska from her child? No—no,
white woman. Your boy has slept against your heart, and
you have felt his voice in your ear, like the song of a young
mocking-bird. You would not send the poor Indian back to
the woods without her child. She has come to you from the
forest, that she may learn the path to the white man’s heaven,
and see her husband again, and you will not show it her.
Give the Indian woman her boy; her heart is growing very
strong; she will not go back to the woods alone!”

As she spoke these words, with an air more energetic even
than her speech, she snatched the child from his grandfather’s
arms, and stood like a lioness guarding her young, her lips
writhing and her black eyes flashing fire, for the savage blood

kindled in her veins at the thought of being separated from »

her son.

‘Be quiet, girl, be quiet. If you go, the child shall go with
you,” said the gentle Mrs. Danforth. ‘‘Do not give way to
this fiery spirit; no one will wrong you.”

Malaeska dropped her air of defiance, and placing the child
humbly at his grandfather’s feet, drew back, and stood with
her eyes cast down, and her hands clasped deprecatingly to-

ether, a posture of supplication in strong contrast with her
Tate wild demeanor. i

“Tet them stay. Do not separate the mother and the
child!” entreated the kind lady, anxious to soothe away the
effect of her husband’s violence. ‘The thoughts of a separ-
ation drives her wild, poor thing. He loved her s—why should
we send her back to her savage haunts? Read this letter
once more, my husband. You can not refuse the dying re-
quest of our first-born. ,

With gentle and persuasive words like these, the kind lady
bea, Malaeska was allowed to remain in the house of
her husband’s father, but it was only as the nurse of her own
son. She was not permitted to acknowledge herself as his
mother; and it was given out that young Danforth had mar-
ried in one of the new settlements—that the young couple had

fallen victims to the savages, and that their infant son had

been rescued by an Indian girl, who brought him to his grand-
father. The story easily gained credit, and it was no matter
of wonder that the old fur merchant soon became fondly at-

tached to the little orphan, or that the preserver of his grand-

ert was made an object of grateful attention in his house-
hold. ii ;

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

MALAESKA, THE INDIAN WIFE OF THE WHITE HUNTER. 13

 

CHAPTER TV.

‘Her heart is in the wild wood;
Her heart is not here.
Her heart isin the wild wood;
It was hunting the deer.”

Ir would have been an unnatural thing had that picturesque
young mother abandoned the woods, and prisoned herself in
a quaint old Dutch house, under the best circumstances. The
wild bird which has fluttered freely from its nest through a
thousand forests, might as well be expected to love its cage,
as this poor wild girl her new home, with its dreary stillness
and its leaden regularity. But love was all-powerful in that
wild heart. It had brought Malaeska from her forest home,

separated her from her tribe in its hour of bitter defeat, and ,

sent her a forlorn wanderer among strangers that regarded her
almost with loathing. ;

The elder Danforth was a just man, but hard as granite in
his prejudices. An only son had been murdered by the sav-
ages to whom this poor young creature belonged. His blood
—all of his being that might descend to posterity—had been
mingled with the accursed race who had sacrificed him.
Gladly would he have rent the two races asunder, in the very
person of his grandchild, could the pure half of his being
been thus preserved.

But he was a proud, childish old man, and there was some-
thing in the boy’s eyes, in the brave lift of his head, and in
his caressing manner, which filled the void in his heart, half
‘with love and half with pain. He could no more separate
the two passions in his own soul, than he could drain the sav-
age blood from the little boy’s veins.

But the house-mother, the gentle wife, could see nothing
but her son’s smile in that young face, nothing but his look
in the large eyes, which, black in color, still possessed some-
thing of the azure light that had distinguished those of the
father.

The boy was more cheerful and bird-like than his mother,
for all her youth had gone out on the banks of the pond
where her husband died. Always submissive, always gentle,
she was nevertheless a melancholy woman. A bird which
had followed its young out into strange lands, and caged it
there, could not have hovered around it more hopelessly.

Nothing but her husband’s dying wish would have kept
Malaeska in Manhattan. She aught of her own people in-
cessantly—of her broken, harassed tribe, desolated by the
death of her father, and whose young chief she had carried
off and given to strangers.

But shame dyed Malaeska’s cheek as she thought of these
things. What right had she, an Indian of the pure blood, to
bring the grandchild of her father under the roof of his ene-
mies? Why had she not taken the child in her arms and
joined her people as they sung the death-chant for her father,
‘‘who,” she murmured to herself again and again, ‘‘was a
great chief,” and retreated with them deep into the’ wilder-
ness, to which they were driven, giving them a chief in her
son?

But no! passion had been too strong in Malaeska’s heart.
The woman conquered the patriot; anf the refinement which
affection had given her, enslaved the wild nature without re-
turning a compensation of love for the sacrifice. She pined
for her people—all the more that they were in peril and sor-
row. She longed for the shaded forest-path, and the pretty
oe with its couches of fur and its floor of blossoming turf.
To her the very winds seemed chained among the city houses;
and when she heard them sighing through the gables, it
seemed to her that they were moaning for freedom, as she
was in the solitude of her lonely life. ; .

They had taken the child from her. A white nurse ‘was
found who stepped in between the young heir and his mother,
thrusting her ruthlessly aside. In this the old man was obsti-
nate. ‘The wild blood of the boy must be quenched; he must
know nothing of the race from which his disgrace sprung. If
the Indian woman remained under his roof, it must be as a
menial, and on condition that all natural affection lay crushed
within her—unexpressed, unguessed at by the household.

But Mrs. Danforth had compassion on the poor mother.
She remembered the time when her own child made all the
pulses of her being thrill with love, which now took the form
of a thousand tender regrets. | She could not watch the lone
Indian stealing off to her solitary room under the gable roof
—a mother, yet childless—without throbs of womanly sorrow.
She was far too good a wife to brave her husband’s authority,
but, with the cowardliness of a kind heart, she frequently
managed to evade it. Sometimes in the night she would
creep out of her prim chamber, and steal the boy from the

 

side of his nurse, whom she bore on her own motherly bosom
to the solitary bed of Malaeska.

Asif Malaeska had a premonition of the kindliness, she
was sure to be wide awake, thinking of her child, and ready
to gush forth in murmurs of thankfulness for the joy of clasp-
ing her own son a moment to that lonely heart.

Then the grandmother would steal to her husband’s side
again, charging it upon her memory to awake before daylight,
and carry the boy back to the stranger’s bed, making her
gentle charity a secret as if it had been a sin.

It was pitiful to see Malaeska haunting the footsteps of her
boy all the day long. If he was taken into the garden, she
was sure to be hovering around the old pear-tree, where she
could sometimes unseen lure him from his play, and lavish
kisses on his mouth as he laughed recklessly, and strove to
abandon her for some bright flower or butterfly that crossed
his path. This snatch of affection, this stealthy way of ap-
peasing a hungry nature, was enough to drive a well-tutored
woman mad; as for Malaeska, it was a marvel that she could
tame her erratic nature into the abject position allotted her in
that family. She had neither the occupation of aservant, nor
the interests of an equal.

Forbidden to associate with the people in the kitchen, yet
never welcomed in the formal parlor when its master was at
home, she hovered around the halls and corners of the house,
or hid herself away in the gable chambers, embroidering beau-
tiful trifles on scraps of silk and fragments of bright cloth,
with which she strove to bribe the woman who controlled her
child, into forbearance and kindness.

But alas, poor woman! submission to the wishes of the dead
was a terrible duty; her poor heart was breaking all the time;
she had no hope, no life; the very glance of her eye was an

appeal for mercy; her step, as it fell on the turf, was laden.

with despondency—she had nothing on earth to live for,

This state of things arose when the child was a little boy;
but as he grew older the bitterness of Malaeska’s lot became
more intense. The nurse who had supplanted her went away;
for he was becoming a fine lad, and far removed from the
need of woman’s care. But this brought her no nearer to his
affections. The Indian blood was strong in his young veins;
he loved such play as brought activity and danger with it, and
broke from the Indian woman’s caresses with a sort of scorn,
and she knew that the old grandfather’s prejudice was taking
root in his heart, and dared not utter a protest. She was for-
bidden to lavish tenderness on her son, or to call forth his in
return, lest it might create suspicion of the relationship.

In bis early boyhood, she could steal to his charaber at

.night, and give free indulgence to the wild tenderness of her

nature; but after a time even the privilege of watching him
in his sleep was denied to her. Once, when slie broke the
tired boy’s rest by her caresses, he became petulant, and
chided her for her obtrusiveness. The repulse went to her
heart like iron. She had no power to plead; for her life, she
dared not tell him the secret of that aching love which she.
felt—too cruelly felt—oppressed his boyhood; for that would
be to expose the disgrace of blood which embittered the old
man’s pride. :

She was his mother; yet her very existence in that house
was held as a reproach. Every look that she dared to cast on
her child was watched jealously as a fault. Poor Malaeska!
hers was a sad, sad life.

She had borne every thing for years, dreaming, poor thing,
that the eternal cry that went up from her heart would be an-
swered, as the boy grew older; but when he began to shrink
proudly from her caresses, and question the five that was
killing her, the despair which smoldered at her heart broke
forth, and the forest blood spoke out with a power that not
even a sacred memory of the dead could oppose. A wild idea
seized upon her. She would no longer remain in the white
man’s house, like a bird beating its wings against the wires
of acage. The forests were wide and green as ever. Her
people might yet be found. She would seek them in the
wilderness. The boy should go with her, and become the
chief of his tribe, as her father had been. That old man
should not forever trample down her heart. There was a
free life which she would find or die.

The boy’s childish petulance had created this wild wish in
his mother’s heart. The least sign of repulsion drove her
frantic. She began to thirst eagerly for her old free existence

in the woods; but for the blood of her husband, which ran in -

the old man’s veins, she would have given way to the savage
hate of her people, against the household in which she had
been so unhappy. As it was, she only panted to be away with
her child, who must love her when no white man stood by to

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12 NEW AND OLD FRIENDS.

 

rebuke him. With her aroused energies the native reticence
of her tribe came to her aid. The stealthy art of warfare
against an enemy awoke. They should not know how
wretched she was. Her plans must be securely made. Every
step toward freedom should be carefully considered. These
thoughts occupied Malaeska for days and weeks. She be-
came active in her little chamber. The bow and sheaf of ar-
rows that had given her the appearance of a young Diana
when she came to Manhattan in her canoe, were taken down
from the wall, newly strung, and the stone arrow-heads_pa-
tiently sharpened. Her dress with its gorgeous embroidery
of fringe and wampum, was examined with care. She must
return to her people as she had left them. The daughter of
a chief—the mother of a chief—not a fragment of the white
man’s bounty should go with her to the forest.

Cautiously, and with something of native craft, Malaeska
made her preparations. Down upon the shores of the Hudson
lived an old carpenter who made boats for a living. Malaes-
ka had often seen him at his work, and her rude knowledge
of his craft ay peculiar interest to the curiosity with which
she regarded him. The Indian girl had long been an object
of his especial interest, and the carpenter was flattered by her
admiration of his work.

One day she came to his house with a look of eager watch-
fulness. Her step was hurried, her eye wild asa hawk’s when
its prey is near. The old man was finishing a fanciful little
craft, of which he was proud beyond any thing. It was so
light, so strong, so beautifully decorated with bands of red
and white around the edge—no wonder the young woman’s
eyes brightened when she saw it.

‘“ What would he take for the boat?” That wasa droll
uestion from her. Why, he had built it to please his own
ancy. <A pair of oars would make it skim the water like a

bird. He had built it with an eye to old Mr. Danforth who
had been down to look at his boats for that dark-eyed grand-
son, whom he seemed to worship. None of his boats were
fanciful or light enough for the lad. So he had built this at
a venture.

Malaeska’s eyes kindled brighter and brighter. Yes, yes;
she, too, was thinking of the young gentleman; she would
bring him to look at the boat. Mrs. Danforth often trusted
the boy out with her; if he would only tell the price, perhaps
they might be able to bring the money, and give the boat a
trial on the Hudson.

The old man laughed, glanced proudly at his handiwork,
and named a price. It was not too much; Malaeska had
double that amount in the embroidered pouch that hung in
her little room at home—for the old gentleman had been lib-
eralto her in every thing but kindness. She went home:
elated and eager; all was in readiness. The next day—oh,
how her heart glowed as she thought of the next day!

"CHAPTER V.

_ Her boatis on the river,
With the boy by her side;
With her bow and her aoe
She stands in her pride.

Tue next afternoon old Mr. Danforth was absent from
home. A municipal meeting, or something of that kind, was
to be attended, and he was always prompt in the performance
of public duties. The good housewife had not been well
for some days. Malaeska, always a gentle nurse, attended
her with unusual assiduity. There was something evidently
‘at work in the Indian woman’s heart. Her lips were pale, her
eyés full of pathetic trouble. After a time, when weariness
made the old lady sleepy, Malaeska stole to the bedside, and
kneeling down, kissed the withered hand that fell over the
bed, with strange humility. This action was so light that the

ood lady did not heed it, but afterward it came to her like a

ream, and as such she remembered this leave-taking of the
poor mother. ;

William—for the lad was named after his father—was in a
moody state that afternoon. | He had no playfellows, for the
indisposition of his grandmother had shut all strangers from
the house, so he went into the garden, and began to draw the
outlines of a rude fortification from the white pebbles that
paved the principal walk. He was interrupted in the work by
a a of orioles, that came dashing through the leaves of an
old apple-tree in a far end of the garden, in full chase and
pursuit, making the very air vibrate with their rapid motion.

 

After chasing each other up and, down, to and fro in the

, clear sunshine, they were attracted by something in the dis-

tance, and darted off like a couple of golden arrows, sending
back wild gushes of music in the start.

The boy had been watching them with his great eyes full
of envious delight. Their riotous freedom charmed him: he
felt chained and caged even in that spacious garden, full of
golden fruit and bright flowers as it was. The native fire
kindled in his frame.

“‘Oh, if I were only a bird, that could fly home when I
pleased and away to the woods again—the bright, beautiful
woods that I can see across the river, but never must play in.
How the birds must love it though!”

The boy stopped speaking, for, like any other child kept to
himself he was talking over his thoughts aloud. Butashadow
fell across the white pebbles on which he sat, and this it was
which disturbed him.

It was the Indian woman, Malaeska, with a forced smile on
her face and looking wildly strange. She seemed larger and
more stately than when he had seen her last. Inher hand she
held a light bow tufted with yellow and crimson feathers.
When she saw his eyes brighten at the sight of the how, Mala-
eska took an arrow from the sheaf which she carried under
her cloak, and fitted it to the string.

‘* See, this is what we learn in the woods.”

The two birds were wheeling to and fro across the garden
and out into the open space; their plumage flashed in the sun-
shine and gushes of musical triumph floated back as one shot
ahead of the other. Malaeska lifted her bow with something
of her old forest gracefulness—a faint twang of the Rae
—a sharp whiz of the arrow, and one of the birds fiuttere
downward, with a sad little cry, and fell upon the ground,
trembling like a broken poplar flower.

The boy started up+—his eye brightened and his thin nostrils |
dilated; the savage instincts of his nature broke out in all his
features.

‘And you learned to do this in the woods, Malaeska?”’ he
said, eagerly.

“Yes; will you learn too?”

‘“Oh, yes—give hold here—quick—quick!”

‘Not here; we learn these things in the woods; come with
me and I will show you all about it.” ,

‘‘Malaeska grew pale as she spoke, and trembled in all her
limbs. What if the boy refused to go with her?

‘“What! over the river to the woods that look so bright
and so brown when the nuts fall? Will you take me there,
Malaeska?”

‘Yes, over the river where it shines like silver.”

“You will? oh my!—but how?”

“Hush! not so loud. In a beautiful little boat.”

“‘ With white sails, Malaeska?”

“ No—with paddles.”

‘Ah, me!—but I can’t make them go in the water; once
grandfather let me try, but I had to give it up.” :

“But I can make them go.”

“You! why, that isn’t a woman’s work.”

“No, but everybody learns it in the woods.”

“Can I?”

“Yes!”

“Then come along before grandfather comes to say we
shan’t; come along, I say; I want to shoot and run and live
in the woods—come along, Malaeska. Quick, or somebody
will shut the gate.”

Malaeska looked warily around—on the windows of the
house, through the thickets, and along the gravel walks. No
one was in sight. She and her boy were all alone. She
breathed heavily and lingered, thinking of the poor lady
within.

“Come!” cried the boy, eagerly; ‘‘I want to go—come
along to the woods.” .

“Yes, yes,” whispered Malaeska, ‘‘to the woods—it is our
home. here I shall be a mother once more.” . :

With the steps of a young deer, starting for its covert, she
left the garden. The boy kept bravely on with her, bounding
forward with a laugh when her step was too rapid for him to
keep up with it. Thus, in breathless haste, they passed
through the town into the open country and along the rough
banks of the river.

A little inlet, worn by the constant action of the water, ran
up into the shore, which is now broken with wharves and
bristling with masts. A clump of old forest-hemlocks bent
over the waters, casting cool, green shadows upon it till the
sun was far in the west. : ; )

In these shadows, rocking sleepily on the ripples, lay the

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

MALAESKA, THE INDIAN WIFE OF THE WHITE HUNTER. 13

 

pretty boat which Malaeska had purchased. A painted bas-
ket, such as the peaceful Indians sometimes sent to market,
stood in the stern stored with bread; a tiger-skin edged with
crimson cloth, according to the Indian woman’s fancy, lay
along the bottom of the boat, and cushions of scarlet cloth,
edged with an embroidery of beads, lay on the seat.

William Danforth broke into a shout when he saw the boat
and its appointments.

‘Are we going in this? May I learn to row, now—now?”
With a leap he sprung into the little craft, and seizing the
oars, called out for her to come on, for he was in a hurry to
begin.

alaeska loosened the cable, and holding the end in her
hand, sprung to the side of her child.

“ Not yet, my chief, not yet; give the oars to me a little
while; when we can no longer see the steeples, you shall pull
them,” she said.

The boy gave up his place with an impatient toss of his
head, which sent the black curls flying over his temples. But
the boat shot out into the river with a velocity that took away
his breath, and he sat down in the bow, laughing as the silver
spray rained over him. ‘With her face to the north, and her
eyes flashing with the eager joy of escape, Malaeska dashed
up the river; every plunge of the oars was a step toward free-
dom—every gleam of the sun struck her as a smile from. the
Great Spirit to whom her husband and father had gone.

When the sun went down, and the twilight came on, the
little boat was farup the river. It had glided under the
shadows of Weehawken, and was skirting the western shore
toward the Highlands, at that time crowned by an unbroken
forest, and savage in the grandeur of wild nature.

Now Malaeska listened to the entreaties of her boy, and
ave the oars into his small hands. No matter though the
oat receded under his brave but imperfect efforts; once out

of sight of the town, Malaeska had less fear, and smiled
securely at the energy with which the little fellow beat the
waters. He was indignant if she attempted to help him, and
the next moment was sure to send a storm of rain over her in
some more desperate effort to prove how capable he was of
taking the labor from her hands.

Thus the night came on, soft and calm, wrapping the mo-
ther and child in a world of silvery moonbeams. Thé shadows
which lay along the hills bounded their watery path with

loom, This made the boy sad, and he began to fee] mourn-

ully weary; but scenes like this were familiar with Malaeska,
and her old nature rose high and free in this solitude which in-
cluded all that she had in the living world—her freedom and
the son of her white husband. ,

“* Malaeska,” said the boy, creeping to her side, and laying
his head on her lap, ‘‘ Malaeska, I am tired—I want to go
home.”

‘‘Home! but you have not seen the woods. Courage, my
chief, and we will go on shore.”

“But it is black—so black, and something is crying there—
something that is sick or wants to get home like me.”

“No, no—it is only a whippowil singing to the night.”

‘‘A whippowil? Is that a little boy, Malaeska? Let us
bring him into the boat.” ;

‘No, my child, it is only a bird.”

“Poor bird!” sighed the boy:’ ‘‘ how! it wants to go
home.”

‘°No, it loves the woods. The bird would die if you took
it from the shade of the trees,” said’ Malaeska, striving to
pacify the boy, who crept upward. into her lap and laid his
cheek against hers. She felt that he trembled, and that tears
lay cold on his cheeks. ‘‘ Don’t, my William, but look up
ae see how many stars hang over us—the river is full of
them.” " ci j

“Oh, but grandfather will be missing me,” pleaded the boy.
Malaeska felt herself chilled; she had taken the boy but not
his memory; that went back to the opulent home he had left.
With her at his side, and the beautiful universe around, he
thought of the old man who had made her worse than a serf
in his household—who had stolen away the human soul that
God had given into her charge... The Indian woman grew sad

to the very depths of her soul when the boy spoke of his .

grandfather. ; fe :
“Come,” she said with mournful pathos, ‘‘ now we will find
an open place in the woods. You shall have a bed like the
pretty flowers. I will build a fire, and you shall see it grow
red among the branches.”
The boy smiled in the moonlight. ~
“<°X fire out of doors! Yes, yes, let’s go into the woods.

- Will the birds talk to us there?”

 

“The birds talk to us always when we get into the deep or
the woods.”

Malaeska urged her boat into a little inlet that ran up be-
tween two great rocks upon the, shore, where it was sheltered
and safe; then she took the tiger-skin and the cushions in her
arms, and, cautioning the boy to hold on to her dress, began
to mount a little elevation where the trees were thin and the
grass abundant, as she could tell from the odor of wild-flow-
ers that came with the wind. A rock lay imbedded in this
rich forest-grass, and over it a huge white poplar spread its
branches like a tent.

Upon this rock Malaeska enthroned the boy, talking to him
all the time, as she struck sparks from a flint which she took
from her basket, and began to kindle a fire from the dry
sticks which lay around in abundance. When William saw
the flames rise up high and clear, illuminating. the beautiful
space around, and shooting gleams of gold through the pop-
lar’s branches, he grew brave again, and coming down from
his eminence, began to gather brushwood that the fire might
keep bright. Then Malaeska took a bottle of water and some
bread, with fragments of dried beef, from her basket, and the
boy came smiling from his work. He was no longer de-
pressed by the dark, and the sight of food made him hungry.

How proudly the Indian mother broke the food and sur-
rendered it to his eager appetite. The bright beauty of her
face was something wonderful to look upon as she watched
him by the firelight. For the first time, since he was a little
infant, he really seemed to belong to her. _

When he was satisfied with food, and she saw that his eye
lids began to droop, Malaeska went to some rocks at a little
distance, and tearing up the moss in great green fleeces,
brought it to the place she had chosen under the poplar-tree,
and heaped a soft couch for the child. Over this she spread
the tiger-skin with its red border, and laid the crimson pil-
lows whose fringes glittered in the firelight like gems around
the couch of a prince.

To this picturesque bed Malaeska took the boy, and seating
herself by his side, began to erie she had done years ago
under the roof of her wigwam. ‘The lad was very weary, and
fell asleep while her plaintive voice filled the air and was an-
swered mournfully back by a night-bird deep in the blackness
of the forest.

When certain that the lad was asleep, Malaeska lay down
on the hard rock by his side, softly stealing one arm over him
and sighing out her troubled joy as she pressed his lips with
her timid kisses. _

Thus the poor Indian sunk to a broken rest, as she had
done all her life, piling up soft couches for those she loved,
and taking the cold stone for herself. It was her woman’s
destiny, not the more certain because of her savage origin.
Civilization does not always reverse this mournful picture of
womanly self-abnegation. :

When the morning came, the boy was aroused by a full
chorus of singing-birds that fairly made the air vibrate with
their melody. fa and out through the branches rung their
wild minstrelsy, till the sunshine came laughing through the
greenness, giving warmth and pleasant light to the music.
William sat up, rubbing his eyes, and wondering at the
strange noises. Then he remembered where he was, and
called aloud for Malaeska. She came from behind a clump
of trees, carrying a partridge in her hand, pierced through the
heart with her arrow. | She flung the bird on the rock at Wil-
liam’s feet, and kneeling down before him, kissed his feet, his
hands, and the folds of his tunic, smoothing his hair and his
garments with pathetic fondness. :

““ When shall we go home, Malaeska?” cried the lad, a little
anxiously.  ‘ Grandfather will want us.” ee

““This is the home for a young chief,” replied the mother,
looking around upon the pleasant sky and the forest-turf, en-
amele with wild-flowers. ‘‘ What white man has a tent like
this?”

The boy looked up and sawa world of golden tulip-blos-
soms starring the branches above him. P

““Tt lets in the cold and rain,” he said, shaking’ the dew
from his glossy hair. ‘‘I don’t like the woods, Malaeska,” —

““But you will—oh yes, you will,” answered the mother,
with anxious cheerfulness; ‘‘see, I have shot a bird for your
breakfast.” . Pe

‘“A bird; and I am so hungry.”

‘* And see here, what I have brought from tlie shore.”

She took a little leaf-basket from 4 recess in the rocks, and
held it up full of black raspberries with the dew glittering
upon them.

The boy clapped his hands, laughing merrily.

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14

, ‘Give me the raspberries—I will eat them all. Grandfather
isn’t here to stop.me, so I will. eat and. eat till the basket is
empty. After all, Malaeska, it is pleasant being in the woods
—come, pour the berries on the moss, just here, and get an-
other basketful while I eat these; but don’t go far—I am
afraid when you are out of sight. No, no, let me build the
fire—see how [ can make the sparks fly.”

Down he came from the rock, forgetting his berries, and
eager to distinguish himself among the brushwood, while

Malaeska withdrew a little distance and prepared her game |

for roasting.

The boy was quick and full of intelligence; he had a fire
blazing at once, and shouted back a challenge to the birds as
its flames rose in the air, sending up wreaths of .delicate blue
smoke into the poplar branches, and curtaining the rocks
with mist.

Directly the Indian woman came forward with her game,
nicely dressed and pierced with a wooden skewer; to this she
attached a piece of twine, which, being tied to a branch over-
head, swung its burden to and fro before the fire.

While this rustic breakfast was in preparation, the boy
went off in search of flowers or berries—any thing that he
could find. He came back with a quantity of green wild
cherries in his tunic, and a bird’s nest, with three speckled
eggs in it, which he had found under a tuft of fern leaves.
A striped squirrel, that ran down a chestnut-limb, looked at
him with such a queer earnestness, that he shouted lustily to
Malaeska, saying that he loved the beautiful woods and all
the pretty things in it.

hen he came back, Malaeska had thrown off her cloak,

and crowned herself with a coronal of scarlet and green

feathers, which rendered her savage dress complete, and made

her an object of wondering admiration to the boy, as she

“moved in and out through the trees, with her face all aglow
‘with proud love. ;

While the partridge was swaying to and fro before the fire,
Malaeska gathered a handful of chestnut-leaves and wove
them together in a. sort of mat;,upon this cool nest she. laid
the bird, and carved it with a pretty poniard which William’s
father had given her in his first wooing; then she made a leaf-
cup, and, going to a little spring which she had discovered,
filled it with crystal water. So, upon the flowering turf, with
wild birds serenading them, and the winds floating softly by,
the mother and boy took their first regular meal in the forest.
William was delighted; every thing was fresh and beautiful
to him. He could scarcely contain his eagerness to be in
action long enough to eat the delicate repast which Malaeska
diversified with smiles and caresses. He wanted to shoot the
birds that sung so sweetly in the branches, all unconscious
that the act would inflict pain on the poor little songsters; he
could not satisfy himself with gazing on the gorgeous raiment
of his mother—it was something wonderful in his eyes,

_At last the rustic meal was ended, and with his lips red-
dened by the juicy fruit, he started up, pleading for the bow
and arrow.

Proud as a queen and fond as a woman, Malacska taught
him how to place the arrow on the bowstring, and when to
lift it gradually toward his face. He took to it naturally, the
young rogue, and absolutely danced for joy when his first ar-
row leaped from his bow and went rifling through the poplar
leaves. How Malaeska loved this practice! how she triumph-
ed in each graceful lift of his arm! how her heart leaped to
the rich tumult of his shouts!' He wanted to go off alone and
try his skill among the squirrels, but Malaeska was afraid,
aud followed him step by step, happy and watchful, Every
moment increased his skill; he would have exhausted the
sheaf of arrows, but that Malaeska patiently searched for them
after each shot, and thus secured constant amusement till he
grew tired even of that rare sport. :

Toward noon, Malaeska left him to rest on the tiger-skin,
and went herself in search of game for the noonday meal;
never had she breathed so freely; never had the woods seemed
so like her home. A sense of profound peace stole over her.
These groves were her world, and on the rock near by lay her
other life—all that she had on earth to love. She was in no
haste to find her tribe. What care had she for any thing
while the boy was with her, and the forest so pleasant! What
did she care for but his happiness?

It required but few efforts of her woodcraft to obtain game
enough for another pleasant meal; so, with a light step, she

‘returned to her fairy-like encampment. Tired with his play,
the boy had fallen asleep on the rock. She saw the graceful
repose of his limbs, and the sunshine shimmering softly
through his black hair. Her step grew lighter; she was afraid

 

NEW AND OLD FRIENDS.

of rustling a leaf, lest the noise might disturb him. Thus,
softly and almost holding her breath, she drew nearer and
nearer to the rock. All at once a faint. gasping breath be-
spoke some terrible emotion—she stood motionless, rooted to
the earth. A low rattle checked her first, and then she saw
the shimmer of a serpent, coiled upon the very rock where
her boy was lying. Her approach had aroused the reptile,
and she could see him preparing to lance out. His first fling
would be at the sleeping boy. The mother was frozen into
marble; she dared not move—she could only stare at the snake
with a wild glitter of the eye.

The stillness seemed to appease the creature. The noise of
his rattle grew fainter, and his eyes sunk like waning fire-
sparks into the writhing folds that settled on the moss. But
the child was disturbed by a sunbeam that slanted through
the leaves overhead, and turned upon the tiger-skin. Instantly
the rattle sounded sharp and clear, and out from the writhing
folds shot the venomous head with its vicious eyes fixed on
the boy. Malaeska had, even in her frozen state, some thought
of saving her boy. With her cold hands she had fitted the
arrow and lifted the bow, but as the serpent grew passive, the
weapon dropped again; for he lay on the other side of the
child, and to kill him she was obliged to shoot over that sleep-
ing form. But the reptile crested himself again, and now
with a quiver of horrible dread at her heart, but nerves
strained like steel, she drew the bowstring, and, aiming at the
head which glittered like a jewel, just beyond her child, let
the arrow fly. She went blind on the instant—the darkness
of death fell upon her brain; the coldness of death lay upon
her heart; she listened for some cry—nothing buta sharp
rustling of leaves and then profound stillness met her strained
senses.

The time in which Malaeska was struck with darkness
seemed an eternity to her, but it lasted only an instant, in

fact; then her eyes opened wide in the agonized search, and

terrible thrills shot through her frame, A laugh rung up
through the trees, and then she saw her boy sitting up on the
tiger-skin, his cheeks all rosy with sleep and dimpled with
surprise, gazing down upon the headless rattlesnake that had
uncoiled convulsively in its death-spasms, and lay quivering
across his feet.

“Ha! ha!” he shouted, clapping his hands, ‘‘this is 4
famous fellow—prettier than the birds, prettier than the squir-
rels. Malaeska! Malaeska! see what this checkered thing is
with no head, and rings on its tail.”

Malaeska was so weak she could hardly stand, but, tremb-
ling in every limb, she staggered toward the rock, and seizing
upon the still quivering snake, hurled it with a shuddering
cry into the undergrowth.

Then she fell upon her knees, and clasped the boy close,
close to her bosom till he struggled and cried out that she
was hurting him. But she could not let him go; it seemed as
if the serpent would coil around him the moment her arms
were loosened; she clung to his garments—she kissed his
hands, his hair, and his flushed forehead with passionate en-

ergy.

te could not understand all this. Why did Malaeska
breathe so hard, and shake so much? He wished she had not
flung away the pretty creature which had crept to his bed
while he slept, and looked so beautiful. But when she told
how dangerous the reptile was, he began to be afraid, and
questioned her with vague terror about the way she had killed
him, f

Some yards from the rock, Malaeska found her arrow on
which the serpent’s head was impaled, and she carried it with
trembling exultation to the boy, who shrunk away with new-
born dread and began to know what fear was,

UO A PTE i Vedoe

“Mid forests and meadow lands, though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home;
Home, home, sweet, sweet home,
There's no place like home;
There's no place like home.”*

Tuts event troubled Malaeska, and gathering up her little
property, she unmoored the boat, and made progress up the
river. The child was delighted with the change, and soon

lost all unpleasant remembrance of the rattlesnake. But Ma-
laeska was very careful in the selection of her encampment
that afternoon, and kindled a bright fire before she spread the

 

 

 

 

a

 

 
 

 

oe

 

 

MALAEFSKA, THE INDIAN WIFE OF THE WHITE HUNTER. 15

 

tiger-skin for William’s bed, which she trusted would keep
all venomous things’ away. They ate their supper under a
huge white pine, that absorbed the firelight in its dusky
branches, cae made every thing gloomy around. As the dark-
ness closed over them William grew silent, and by the heavi-
ness of his features Malaeska saw that he was oppressed by ~
thoughts of home. She had resolved not to tell him of the
relationship which was constanly in her thoughts, till they
should stand at the council-fires of the tribe, when the Indians
should know him as their chief, and he recognize a mother
in poor Malaeska.

Troubled by his sad look, the Indian woman sought for
something in her stores that should.cheer him. She found
some seed-cakes, golden and sweet, which only brought tears
into the child’s eyes, for they reminded him of home and all
its comforts.

““Malaeska,” he said, ‘‘when shall we go back to grand-
father and grandmother? \I know they want to see us.”

“No, no; we must not think about that,” said Malaeska,
anxiously.

“But I can’t help it—how can I?” persisted the boy, mourn-
fully.

« Don't—don't say you love them—I mean your grandfather
more than you love Malaeska. She would die for you.”

‘“ Yes; but I don’t want you to die, only to go back home,”
he pleaded.

‘We are going home—to our beautiful home in the woods,
which I told you of.” ,

“Dear me, I’m tired of the woods.”

““Dired of the woods?” :

“Yes, lam tired. They are nice to play in, but it isn’t

home no way. How far is it, Malaeska, to where grandfather

lives?”

““T don’t know—I don’t want to-know. We shall never—
never go there again,” said the Indian, passionately. ‘‘ You
are mine, all mine.” (

The boy struggled in her embrace, restively.

‘“But [won't stay in the woods. I want to be ina real
house, and sleep in a soft bed, and—and—there, now, it is
going to rain; I hear it thunder. Oh, how I want to go
home!”

There was in truth a storm mustering over them; the wind
rose and moaned hoarsely through the pines. Malaeska was
greatly distressed, and gathered the tired boy lovingly to her
bosom for shelter. *

‘“Have patience, William; nothing shall hurt you. To-
morrow we will row the boat all day. You shall pull the
oars yourself.” ‘

‘‘ Shall I, though?” said the boy, brightening a little; ‘‘ but
will it be on the way home?”

‘* We shall go across the mountains where the Indians live.
The brave warriors who will make William their king.”

“But I don’t want to be a king, Malaeska!”

‘*A chief—a great chief—who shall go to the war-path and
fight battles.” ;

‘Ah, I should like that, with your pretty bow and arrow,
Malaeska; wouldn’t I shoot the wicked red-skins?”

“Ah, my boy, don’t say that.” :

“Oh,” said the child, shivering, ‘‘the wind is cold; how it
sobs in the pine boughs. Don’t you wish we were at home
now?”

‘Don’t be afraid of the cold,” said Malaeska, in a troubled
voice; ‘‘see, I will wrap this cloak about you, and no rain
can come through the fur blanket. We are brave, you and I
—what do we care for a little thunder and rain—it makes me
feel brave.”

‘But you don’t care for home; you love the woods and the
rain. The thunder and lightning makes your eyes bright, but
I don’t like it; so take me home, please, and then you may go
to the woods; I won't tell.”

“Oh, don’t—don’t. It breaks my heart,” cried the poor
mother. ‘‘Listen, William; the Indians—my people—the
brave Indians want you for a chief. In a few years you shall
lead them to war.”

‘But I hate the Indians.”

Ti, Oe

‘“ They are fierce and cruel.”

““ Not to you—not to you!”

““T won’t live with the Indians!”

‘“They are a brave people—you shall be their chief.”

“They killed my father.”

‘‘But I am of those people. I saved you and brought you
among the white people.” f

“Yes, I know; grandmother told me that.”

 

‘“‘ And I belonged to the woods.” ’

‘“ Among the Indians?”

“Yes. Your father loved these Indians, William.”

‘* Did he?—but they killed him.”

‘* But it was in battle.”

‘In fair battle; did you say that?” ;

‘Yes, child. Your father was friendly with them, but
they thought he had turned enemy. A great chief met him
in the midst of the fight, and they killed each other. They
fell and died together.”

“Did you know this great chief, Malaeska?”

‘‘He was my father,” answered the Indian woman, hoarsely;
“my own father.”

““Your father and mine; how strange that they should hate
each other,” said the boy, thoughtfully.

“‘Not always,” answered Malaeska, struggling against the
tears that choked her words; ‘‘at one time they loved each
other.”

‘‘Loved each other! Did my father love you, Malaeska?”

White as death the poor woman turned; a hand was
clenched under her deer-skin robe, and pressed hard against
her heart; but she had promised to reveal nothing, and brave-
ly kept her word.

The boy forgot his reckless question the moment it was
asked, and did not heed her pale silence, for the storm’ was
gathering darkly over them. Malaeska wrapped him in her
cloak, and sheltered him with her person. The rain began to
patter heavily overhead; but the pine tree was thick with
foliage, and no drops, as yet, could penetate to the earth.

‘“See, my boy, we are safe from the rain; nothing can
reach us here,” she said, cheering his despondency. ‘‘T will
heap piles of dry wood on the fire, and shelter you all night
long.” .

She paused a moment, for flashes of blue lightning began .
to play fiercely through the thick foliage overhead, revealing

| depths of darkness that was enough to terrify a brave man.

No wonder the boy shrunk and trembled as it flashed and
quivered over him. : of

Malaeska saw how frightened he was, and piled dry wood
recklessly on the fire, hoping that its steady blaze would re-
assure him. ;

They were encamped on a spur of the Highlands that. shot
in a precipice over the stream, and the light of Malaeska’s fire
gleamed far and wide, casting a—golden track ‘far down the
Hudson.

Four men, who were urging a boat bravely against the
storm, saw the light, and shouted eagerly to each other.

‘‘Here she is; nothing but an Indian would keep up a fire
like that. Pull steadily and we have them.” ;

They did pull steadily, and aire the storm, the~ boat
made harbor under the cliff where Malaeska’s fire still burned.
Four men stole away from the boat, and crept stealthily up the
hill, guided by the lightning and the gleaming fire above.
The rain, beating among the branches, drowned their foot- —
steps; and they spoke only in whispers, which were lost on
the wind. : =

William had dropped asleep with ar his thick eye-
lashes, which the strong firelight revealed to Malaeska, who
regarded him with mournful affection. The cold wind chilled
her through and through, but she did not feel it. So long as
the boy slept comfortably she had no want. NAYS

Thave said that the storm muffled all other sounds; and the
four men who had left their boat at the foot of the cliff stood
close by Malaeska before she had the least idea of their ap-
proach. . Then a blacker shadow than fell from the pine, dark-
ened the space around her, and looking suddenly up, she saw
the stern face of old Mr. Danforth between her and the fire-
light.

“MIalaeska did not speak or H. aloud, bul snatching the
sleeping boy close to her heart, lifted her pale face to -his,
half-defiant, half-terrified. di

““Take my grandson from the woman and bring him down
to the boat,” said the eld man, addressing those that came
with him. ‘

““No, no, he is mine!” cried Malaeska, fiercely. ‘‘ Nothing
but the Great Spirit shall take him from me again!”

The sharp anguish in her voice awoke the boy. He strug-
gled in her arms, and looking around, saw the old man.

“Grandfather, oh! grandfather, take me home. I do want
to go home,” he cried, stretching out his arms.

“Oh!” J have not the power of words to express the bitter
anguish of that single exclamation, when it broke from the
mother’s pale lips. It was the yl of a heart that snapped its
strongest fiber there and then. The boy wished to leave her.

 
   
 

 

 

 
  

 

 

 
  

a ee

16

NEW AND OLD FRIENDS.

 

 

She had no strength after that, but allowed them to force him
from her arms without a struggle. The rattlesnake had not
paralyzed her so completely.

So they took the boy ruthlessly fron: her embrace, and car-
ried him away. She followed after without a word of protest,
and saw them lift him into the boat and push off, leaving her
to the pitiless night. It was acruel thing—bitterly cruel—but
the poor woman was stupefied with the blow, and watched
the boat with heavy eyes. All at once she heard the boy call-
ing after her:

** Malaeska, come too! Malaeska—Malaeska!”

She heard the cry, and her icy heart swelled passionately.
With the leap of a panther she sprung to her own boat, and
dashed after her tormentors, pulling fiercely through the
storm. But with all her desperate energy, she was not able to
overtake those four powerful men. They were out of sight
directly, and she drifted after them alone—all alone.

Malaeska never went back to Mr. Danforth’s house again,
but she built a lodge on the Weehawken shore and supported
herselt by selling painted baskets and such embroideries as
the Indians excel in. It was ¢ lonely life, but sometimes she
met her son in the streets of Manhattan, o1 sailing on the
river, and this kept her alive.

=

 

her brethren had returned into the interior. The great tribe
which gave its name to the richest intervale in New York
State, was always munificent in its hospitality to less fortu-
nate brethren, to whom its hunting-grounds were eyer open.
Malacska knew that her people were mustered gomewhere
near the amber-colored falls of Genesee, and she began her
mournful voyage with vague longings to see them again,
now that she had nothing but memories to live upon.

With a blanket in the bow of her'boat, a few loaves of
bread, and some meal in a coarse linen bag, she started up
the river. The boat was battered and beginning to look oid
—half the gorgeous paint was worn from its sides, and the
interior had been often washed by the tempest that beat over
the little cove near her lodge where she had kept it moored.
She made no attempt to remedy its desolate look. The tiger-
skin was left behind in her lodge. Nocrimson cushions rend-
ered the single seat tempting to sit upon. These fanciful
comforts were intended for the boy—motherly love alone pro-
vided them; but now she had no care for things of this kind.
A poor lone Indian woman, trampled on by the whites, de-
serted by her own child, was going back to her kinsfolk for
shelter. Why should she attempt to appear less desolate than
she was?

a

$=

nN
i SS

MUIMMANLA Ae AES MAIDA BE MA MANA

_—

Matlaeska turned with an air of wild, heart-thrilling appeal to the lady.

After a few month, the lad came to her lodge. His grand-
mother consented to the visit, for she still had compassion on
the lone Indian, and would not let the youth go beyond sea
without bidding her farewell. In all the bitter anguish of
that parting, Malaeska kept her faith, and smothering the

reat want of her soul, saw her son depart without putting
orth the holy claim of her motherhood. One day Malaeska
stood upon the shore and saw a white-sailed ship veer from
her moorings and pass away with cruel swiftness toward the
ocean, the broad, boundless ocean, that seemed to her like
eternity.

CHAPTER VI.

Alone in the forest, alone,
When the night is dark and late—
Alone on the waters, alone, ,
, She drifts to her woman’s fate.
AGAIN Malacska took to her boat, and, all alone, began her
ammournful journey to the forest. After the fight at Catskill,

 

 

* You will not send Malaeska from her child,” she said.—Page 10.

Thus, dreary and abandoned, Malaeska sat in her boat,
heavily urging it up the stream. She had few wants, but
pulled at the oars all day long, keeping time to the slow move-
ment with her voice, from which a low funeral chant swelled
continually. 7 ;

Sometimes sie went ashore, and building a fire in the lonc-
liness, cooked the fish she had speared or the bird her arrow
had brought down; but these meals always reminded her of
the few happy days spent, after the sylvan fashion, with her
boy, and she would sit moaning over the untasted food till
the very birds that hovered near would | in their singing
to look askance ather. So she relaxed in her monotonous
toil but seldom, and generally slept in her little craft, with
the current rippling around her, and wrapped only in a coarse,
gray blanket. :

No one cared about her movements, and no one attempted
to bring her back, or she might have been traced at intervals
by some rock close to the shore, blackened with embers,
where she had baked her corn-bread, or by the feathers of ‘a
bird which she had dressed, without caring to eat it.

Day after day—day after day, Malaeska kept on her watery
path till she came to the mouth of the Mohawk. There she

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

‘their lo

MALAESKA, THE INDIAN WIFE OF THE WHITE HUNTER. ; 1g

 

rested a little, with a weary, heavy-hearted dread of pursuing
her journey further. What if her people should reject her as
arenegade? She had deserted them in their hour of deep
trouble—fled from the grave of her father, their chief, and
had carried his grandson away to his bitterest enemy, the
white man.

Would the people of her tribe forgive this treason, and take
her back? She scarcely cared; life had become so dreary,
the whole world so dark, that the poor soul rather courted
pain, and would Psion to know that death was near.
Some vague ideas of feligion, that the gentle grandmother of
her son had taken pains to instill into that wild nature, kept
her from self-destruction; but she counted the probabilities
that the tribe might put her to death, with vague hope.

Weary days, and more weary nights, she spent upon the
Mohawk, creeping along the shadows and seeking the gloom-
iest spots for her repose; under the wild grape-vines that bent
down the young elms with their purple fruit—under the
Ste willows and dusky pines she sought rest, never caring

or danger; for, what had she to care how death or pain pre-
sented itself, so long as she had no fear of either?

At last she drew up her boat under a shelving precipice, and
making it safe, took to the wilderness with nothing but a

 

rest of their sex, the dusky sisterhood liked to be in the way
of intelligence. Malaeska had changed greatly during the
> that she had been absent among the whites. the
ightness and grace of youth were gone, a more imposing dig-
nity came in their place. Habits of refinement had kept her
complexion clear and her hair: bright. She had‘ left them a
slender, spirited young creature; she returneda serious wo-
man, modest, but queenly withal.

The women regarded her first with surprise and then with
kindling anger, for, after pausing to look at them without find-
ing a familiar face, she walked on toward the lodge, and lift-
ing the mat, stood within the opening in full view both of the
warriors assembled there and the wrathful glances of the
females on the outside.

When the Indians saw the entrance to’ their council dark-
ened by a woman, dead silence fell upon them, followed by a
fierce murmur that would have made a person: who feared
death tremble. Malaeska stood undismayed, surveying the
savage group with a calm, regretful look; for among the old
men, she saw some that had been upon the war-path with hex
father. Turning to one of these warriors, she said:

“‘Tt'is Malaeska, daughter of the Black Eagle.”

A murmur of angry surprise ran through the lodge, and

 

When she saw his eyes brighten at the sight of the bow, Malaeska took an arrow from the sheaf and fitted it to the string.— Page 12.

little corn-meal, her blanket, and bow. | With the same heavy
listlessness that had marked her entire progress, she threaded
the forest-paths, knowing by the hacked trees that her tribe
had passed that way. But her path was rough, and the en-
campment far off, and she had many a heavy mile to walk
before it could be reached. Her moccasins were worn to tat-
ters, and her dress, once so; gorgeous, all rent and weather-
stained when she came in sight of the little prairie, hedged in
by oe, forest-trees, in which her broken tribe had built
es,

Malaes threw away her scant burden of food, and took a
fe bearing when she came in sight of those familiar
odges. In all her sorrow, shé could not forget that she was
the daughter of a great chief and a princess among the people
which she sought. ~

Thus, with an imperial tread, and eyes bright as the stars,

. she enteréd thé encampment and sought the lodge which, by

familiar signs, she knew to be that of the chief who had su-
perseded her son.

It was near sunset, and many of the Indian women had
gathered in front of this lodge, waiting for their lords to come
forth; for there was a council within the lodge, and like the

 

the women crowded together, menacing her with’ their
glances. f

‘When my husband, the young white chief, died,” con-
tinued Malaeska, ‘‘ he told me to go down the great water and
sr my son to his own people. The Indian wife obeys her
chief.’ £

A warrior, whom Malacska knew as the friend of her father,
arose with austere gravity, and spoke:' "

“Tt is many years since Malaeska took the young chief to
his white fathers. The hemlock that was green has died at
the top since then. Why does Malaeska come back to her
people alone? Is the boy dead?”

Malaeska turned pale in the twilight, and’her voice faltered. —
“The boy is not dead—yet Malaeska is alone!” she answered
plaintively. phd Iie ON &

‘“Has the woman made a white chief of the boy? Has he
become the enemy of our people?” said another of,the Indians
looking steadily at Malaeska.

Malaeska knew the voice and the look; it was that of a
brave who, in his youth, had besought her to share his wig-
wam. A gleam of proud reproach came over her features, as
she bent her head without answering.

 
  

 

eee

 

18

 

Then the old chief spoke again. ‘‘ Why does Malaeska come
back to her tribe like a bird with its wings broken? Has the
white chief driven her from his wigwam?”

Malaeska’s voice'broke out; the gentle pride of her charac-
ter rose as the truth of her position presented itself.

‘*Malaeska obeyed the young chief, her husband, but her
heart turned back to her own people. . She tried to bring the
boy into the forest again, but they followed her up the great
river and took him away; Malaeska stands here alone.”

Again the Indian spoke. *‘ The daughter of the Black Eagle
forsook her tribe when the death-song of her father was loud
in the woods. She comes back when the corn is ripe, but
there is no wigwam open to her. When a woman of the tribe
goes off to the, enemy, she returns only to die. Have I said
well?”

A’ guttural murmun of assent ran) through the lodge... The
women heard it from their place in the open air, and gather-
ing fiercely around the door, cried out, ‘‘ Give her to us! She
has stolen our chief—she has disgraced her’tribe. It is long
since we have danced at the fire-festival.”

The rabble of angry women came on with their taunts and
menaces, attempting to seize Malaeska, who. stood’pale and
still before them; but the chief, whom she had. once rejected,
stood up, and;with a motion of his hand repulsed them.

‘*Let the women go back to their wigwams. The daughter
of a great chief dics only by the hands of achief. To the
warrior of her tribe, whom she has wronged, her life belongs.”

Malaeska lifted her sorrowful eyes to his face—how changed
it was since the day he had asked her to share his lodge.

‘“And it is you that want my life?” she said.

‘* By the laws of the tribe it is mine,” he answered. ‘‘ Turn
your face to the east—it is growing dark; the forest is deep;
no ene shall hear Malaeska’s cries when the hatchet cleaves
her forehead. Come!”

Malaeska turned in pale terror, and followed him. No one
interfered with the chief whom she had refused for a white
man. Her life belonged tohim. Hehada fight to choose
the time and place of her execution. But the women express-
ed their disappointment in fiendish sneers, as she glided like
a ghost through their ranks and disappeared in the blackness
of the forest.

Not a word was spoken between her and the chief. Stern
and silent he struck into a trail which she knew led to the
river, for she had traveled over it the day before. Thus, in
darkness and profound silence, she walked on all night till her
limbs were so weary that she longed to call out and pray the
chief to kill her then and there; but he kept on a little in ad-
vance, only turning now and then to be sure that she followed.

Once she ventured to ask him why he put off her death so
long; but he pointed along the trail, and walked along with-
out deigning a reply. During the day he took a handful of
parched corn from his pouch and told her to eat; but for him-
elf, through that long night and day, he never tasted a mor-
sek . ‘ %

Toward sunset they came out on the banks of the Mohawk,
near the very spot where she had left her boat. The Indian
paused here and looked steadily at his victim.

The blood grew cold in Malaeska’s veins—death was terrible
when it came so near. She cast one look of pathetic pleading
on his face, then, folding her hands, stood before him waiting
for the moment.

“ Malaeska !”

His voice,was softened, his lips quivered as the name once
so sweet to his heart passed through them.

‘“Malaeska, the river is broad and deep. The keel of: your
boat leaves no track. Go! the Great Spirit will light you with

his stars. Here is corn and dried venison. Go in peace !”

She looked.at him with her wild; tender eyes; her lips began
to tremble, her heart swelled with gentle sweetness, which was
the grace of her civilization. Sbe took the red hand of the
savage and kissed it reverently. }

“Farewell,” she said; “Malaeska has no words; her heart
is full.” 95

The savage began to tremble; a glow of the old passion
came over him.

“Malaeska, my wigwam is empty ; will you go back? It is
my right to saveor kill.”

Malaeska pointed upward to the sky.

“ He is yonder, in the great hunting-ground, waiting for Ma-
laeska to come. Could she go blushing from: another chief's
wigwam??) try

‘or one instant those savage features were conyulsed ; then
they settled down into the cold gravity of his former expres-
sion, and he pointed to the boat. :

NEW AND OLD FRIENDS.

 

~

She went down to the edge of the water, while he took the
blanket from his shoulders and placed it into the boat. Then
he pushed the little craft from its mooring, and motioned her
to jump in; he forbore to touch her hand, or even look on her
face, but'saw her take up the oars and leave. the shore without
a word; but, when she was out of. sight, his head fell forward
on. i bosom, and he gradually sunk to an attitude of profound
grief.

While he sat upon a fragment, of rock, with a rich sunset
crimsoning the water at his feet, a canoe came down the
river, urged by a.white man, the only one who ever visited his
tribe. This man was a missionary among the Indians, who
held him in reverence as.a great. medicine chief, whose power
of good was something to marvel at.

The chief beckoned to the missionary, who seemed in haste,
but he drew near the shore. In a few brief but eloquent
words the warrior spoke of Malaeska, of the terrible fate from
which she had just been rescued, and of the forlorn life to
which she must henceforth be consigned. There was some-
thing grand in this compassion that touched a thousand gene-
rous impulses in the missionary’s heart. He was on his course
down the river—for his duties lay with the Indians of many
tribes—so he promised to overtake the lonely woman, to com-
fort and. protect her from harm, till she reached some settle-
ment, 3

The good man kept his word. An hour after his canoe was
attached to Malaeska’s little eraft by its slender cable, and he
was conversing kindly with her of those things that interested
his pure nature most.

Malaeska listened with meek and grateful attention. No
flower ever opened to the suushine more sweetly than her soul
received the holy revelations of that good man. He had no
time or place for teaching, but seized any opportunity that
arose where a duty could be performed. His mission lay al-
ways where human souls required knowledge. So he never
left. the lonely woman till long after they had passed the
mouth of the Mohawk, and were floating on the Hudson.
When they came in sight of the Catskill range, Malaeska was
seized with an irresistible longing to see the graves of her hus-
band and father. What other place in the wide, wide
world had she to look for? Where could she go, driven
forth as she was by her own people, and by the father of her
husband ?

Surely among the inhabitants of the village she could sell
such trifles as her inventive talent could create, and if any of
the old lodges stood near “ the Straka,” that would be shelter
enough,

With these thoughts in her mind, Malaeska took leave of
the missionary with many a whispered blessing, and took her
way to “the Straka.” There she found an old lodge, through
whose crevices the wind had whistled for years; but she went
diligently to work, selniny moss and turf, with which this
old home, connected with so many sweet and bitter associa-
tions, was rendered habitable again. Then she took posses-
sion, and proceeded to invent many objects of comfort and
even taste, with which to beautify the spot she had conse-
crated with memories of her passionate youth, and its early,
only love. : ’

The woods were full of game, and wild fruits were abun-
dant; so that it was a long, long time before Malaeska’s resi-
dence in the neighborhood was known. She shrunk from ap-
proaching a people who had treated her so cruelly, and so kept
in utter loneliness so long as solitude was possible.

In all her life Malaeska retained but one vague hope, and
that was for the return of her son from that far-off country to
which the eruel whites had sent him. She had questioned the
missionary earnestly about these lands, and had now a settled
idea of their extent and distance across the ocean, The great
waters no longer seemed like eternity to her, or absence so

much like death. Sometime she might see her child a ain 5

till then she wouid wait and pray to the white man’s me

 

. CHAPTER VIII.

Huzza for the forests and hillst
Huzza for the berries so blue!
Our baskets we'll cheerily fill; _ ‘
While the thickets are sparkling with dew,
Years before the scene of our story returns to Catskill
Arthur Jones and the pretty Martha Fellows. had married and
settled down in life.> The kind-hearted old man died soon

\

 

 

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}

 
 

 

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}
}
i

MALAHSKA, THH INDIAN WIFE OF THE WHITE HUNTER. 19

after the union, and left the pair inheritors of. his little shop
and of a respectable landed. property... Arthur made an in-
dulgent, good husband, and Martha soon became too much
confined by the cares of a rising family for any practice of the
teasing coquetry which had characterized her girlhood. She
seconded her husband in all his money-making projects; was
an economical and thrifty housekeeper; never allowed her
children to go barefooted, except in the very warmest weather ;
and, to use her own words, made a point of holding her head
as high as any woman in the settlement.

If an uninterrupted course of prosperity could entitle a per-
son to this privilege, Mrs. Jones certainly made no false claim
to it. Every year added something to her husband's posses-
sions, Several hundred acres of cleared land were purchased
beside that which he inherited from his father-in-law; the
humble shop gradually increased to a respectable variety store,
and a handsome. frame-house occupied the site of the old log-
cabin.

Besides all this, Mr. Jones was a justice of the peace anda
dignitary in the village; and his wife, though a great, deal
stouter than when a girl, and the mother of six children, had
lost none of her healthy good looks, and at the age of thirty-
eight, continued to be a very handsome woman, indeed.

hus was the family situated at the period when our story
returns to them. One warm afternoon in the depth of sum-
mer, Mrs. Jones was sitting in the porch of her dwelling, oc-
cupied in mending a garment of home-made linen, which,
from its size, evidently belonged to some one of her yeunger
children. A cheese-press, with a rich heavy mass of curd
compressed between the screws, occupied one. side of the
porch; and against it stood a small double flax-wheel, un-
banded, and with a day’s work yet unreeled from. the spools.
A hatchel and a pair of hand-cards, with a bunch of spools tied
together by a tow string, lay in a corner, and high above, on
rude wooden pegs, hung several enormous bunches of tow and
linen yarn, the products of many weeks’ hard labor.

Her children had gone into-the woods after whortleberries,
and the mother now and then laid down her work and stepped
out to the greensward beyond the porch to watch their coming,
not anxiously, but as one who feels restless and lost without her
usual companions. After standing on the grass for awhile,
shading her eyes with her hand and looking toward the woods,
she at last returned to the porch, laid down her work, and en-
tering the kitchen, filled the tea-kettle and began to make pre-
parations for supper. She had drawn a long pine-table to the
middle of the floor, and was proceeding to spread it, when her
eldest daughter came through the porch, with a basket of
whortleberries on her arm. Tes pretty face was flushed with
walking, and a profusion of fair tresses flowed in. some dis-
order from her pink sun-bonnet, which was falling partly back
from her head.

“Oh, mother, I have something so strange to tell you,” she
said, setting down the basket with its load,of ripe, blue fruit,
and fanning herself with a bunch of chestnut leaves gathered
from the woods. “You know the old wigwam by ‘the
Straka?” Well, when we went by it, the brush, which used to
choke up the door, was all cleared off; the crevices were filled
with green moss and leaves, and a cloud of smoke was curling
beautifully up from the roof among the trees. We could not
tell what to make of it, and were afraid to look in at first;
but, finally, I peeped through an opening in the logs, and, as
true as you are here, mother, there sat an Indian woman read-
ing—reading, mother! did you know that Indians could read?
The inside of the wigwam was hung with straw matting, and
there was a chest in it, and some stools, and a little shelf of
books, and another with some earthen dishes and a china cup
and saucer, sprinkled with gold, standing upon it. I did not
see any bed, but there was a pile of fresh, sweet fern in one
corner, with a pair of clean sheets spread on it, which I sup-
pose she sleeps on, and there certainly was a feather pillow
lying at the top. -

“Well, the Indian woman looked kind and harmless ;
a I made an excuse to go in, and ask for a cup to drink out
of.

“As I went round to the other side of the wigwam, I saw
that the smoke came up from a fire on the outside; a kettle
was hanging in the flame, and several other pots and kettles
stood on a little bench by the trunk of an oak-tree, close by.
T must have made some noise, fer the Indian woman was
looking toward the deor when I opened it, as if she were a lit-
tle afraid, but when she saw who it was, I never saw any one
smile so pleasantly; she gave me the china cup, and went
with me out, to the spring, where the boys were playing.

“AsTIwas drinking, my sleeve fell back, at she saw the

 

little wampum bracelet which you gave me, you know, mother.
She started and took hold of my arm, and stared in my face,
as if she would have looked me through; at lastishe sat down
on the grass by the spring,and asked me to sit down by her and
tell her my name. When I told her, she seemed) ready to cry
with joy; tears came into her eyes, and she kissed my hand
two or three times, as if [had been the best friend, she ever
had on earth.

“J told her that a poor Indian gir] had given the bracelet to
you before you were married to my father. | She asked a great
many questions about it and you.

‘‘ When I began to describe the Indian. fight, and the chief’s
grave down by the lake, she sat perfectly still till I had done;
then I looked in her face; great tears were rolling one by one
down her cheeks, her hands were locked in her lap, and her
eyes were fixed upon my face with a strange,stare, asif she did
not know what she was gazing so hard at: Shelooked in my
face in this way, more than a minute after I, had done speak-
ing. be \

“The boys stopped their play, for they had begun to dam
up the spring, and stood with their hands full of turf, huddled
together, and staring at the poor woman asif they had never
seen a person cry before. She did not seem to mind them, but
went into the wigwam again without speaking a word.”

“And was that the last you saw/of her?” inquired Mrs.
Jones, who had become interested in her daughter’s narration.

‘‘Oh, no; she came out again just as we were going away
from the spring. Her voice was more sweet and mournful
than it had been, and her eyes looked heavy and troubled. She
thanked me for the story I had told her, and gave me this pair
of beautiful moccasins.” ,

Mrs. Jones took the moccasins from her daughter’s hand.
They were of neatly-dressed deer-skin, covered: with beads and
delicate needlework in silk.

“Tt is strange!” muttered Mrs. Jones; one might think it
possible. But nonsense; did not the old merehant send us
word that the poor creature and her child were lost in the
Highlands—that they died of hunger? Well, Sarah,” she
added; turning to her daughter, ‘‘is this all?’ What did the
woman say when she gave you the moccasins? I don’t won-
der that you are pleased with them.” 29K

‘She only told me to come, and—”

Here Sarah was interrupted by a troop of noisy boys, who
came ina body through the porch, flourishing their straw hats
and swinging their whortleberry baskets, heavy withdruit, back
and forth at each step.

‘‘Wurra! hurra! Sarah’s fallen in love with an old squaw.
How do you do, Miss Jones? Oh, mother, I wish you could ’a’
poem het hugging and kissing the copper-skin—it was beauti-

ul!

Here the boisterous rogues set up a laugh that rung through
the house, like the breaking up of a military muster.

“Mother, do make them be still; they have done nothing
but tease and make fun of me all the way home,” said the an-
noyed girl, half crying, i

‘‘How did the old squaw’s lips taste, hey ?” persisted the
eldest. boy, pulling his sister’s sleeve, and looking with eyes
full of saucy mischief up into her face. “ Sweet:as maplesugar
wasn’t it? Come, tell.” ‘ ‘

“ Arthur—Arthur! you had better be quiet, if you know
when you're well off!” exclaimed the mother, with a slight mo-
tion of the hand, which had a great deal of significant mean-
ing to the mischievous group. We

‘Oh, don’t—please don’t!” exclaimed the spoiled urchin,
clapping his hands to his ears and running off to a corner,
where he stood laughing in his mother’s face. ‘I say, Sarah,
was it sweet ?” f

“ Arthur, don’t let me speak to you again, I say,” cried Mrs.
Jones, making a step forward and doing her utmost'to get up
a frown, while her hand gave additional demonstration of its
hostile intent.

“ Well, then, make her tell me; you ought to'cuff her ears
for not answering a civil question—hadn’t she, boys ?”

There was something altogether too ludicrous in this impu-
dent appeal, and in the look of demure mischief put on by the
culprit.. Mrs. Jones bit her lips and turned away, leaving the
boys, a8 usual, victor of the field. _‘‘ He isn’t worth minding,
Sarah,” she said, evidently ashamed of her want of resolution ;
‘come into the ‘ out-room,’ I’ve something to tell you.”

When the mother and daughter were alone, Mrs. Jones sat
down and drew the young girl into her lap.

‘‘Well, Sarah,” she maa, smoothing down the rich hair
that lay against her bosom, “ your father and I have been talle
ing about you to-day. You are almost sixteen, and can spin

.

 
 

 

 

 

    

20

NEW AND OLD FRIENDS.

 

your day’s work with any girl in the settlement. Your father
says that after you have learned to weave and make cheese, he
will send. you down to Manhattan to school.”

‘*Oh, mother, did he say so? in real, real earnest?” cried
the delighted girl flinging her arms round her mother’s neck
and kissing her yet handsome mouth with joy at'the informa-
tion it had just conveyed. “When will you let me go? I can
learn to weave and make cheese in a week.”

“Tf you learn all that he thinks best for you to know in
two years, it will be as much as weexpeet. Highteen is quite
young enough. If you are very smart at home, you shall go
when you are eighteen.”

“Two years is a long, long time,” said the girl, in a tone of
disappointment; ‘* but then father is kind to let me go at all.
I will run down to the store and thank him. But, mother,”
she added, turning back from the door, “was there really any
harm in talking ‘with the Indian woman ? There was nothing
about her that did not seem like the whites but her skin, and
that was not so very dark.”

“Harm? No, child; how silly you are to let the boys tease
you so.” ;

‘*T will go and see her again, then—may I ?”

“ Certainly—but'see ; ea father is coming to supper; run
out and cut'the bread. You must be very smart, now ; remem-
ber the school.”

During the time which intervened between Sarah Jones’ six-
teenth and eighteenth year she was almost a daily visitor at
the wigwam.' The little footpath which led from the village
to “the Straka,” though scarcely definable to others, became
as familiar to her as the grounds about her father’s house. If
a day or two passed in which illness or some other Cause pre-
vented her usual visit, she was sure to receive some little to-
ken of remembrance from the lone Indian woman. Now, it
reached herin the'form of a basket of ripe fruit, or a bunch of
wild flowers, tied together with the taste of an artist; again, it
was a cluster of grapes; with the purple bloom lying fresh up-
on them, or a young mocking-bird, with notes as sweet as that
of a fountain, would reach her by the hands of ‘some village

boy. ‘

These affectionate gifts could always be traced to the inhabi-
tant of the wigwam, even though she did not, as was some-
times the case, present them in person.

There was something strange in the appearance of this In-
dian woman, which at first excited the wonder, and at length
secured the respect of the settlers. Her language was pure
and elegdnt, sometimes even poetical beyond their comprehen-
sion, and her sentiments were correct in’ principle, and full of
simplicity. When she tas in the village with moccasins
or pretty painted baskets for sale, her manner was apprehen-
sive and timid as that of a child. She never sat down, and sel-
dom entered any dwelling, preferring to sell her merchandise
in the open air, and using as few words as possible in the trans-
action. She was never seen to be angry, and a sweet, patient
smile always hovered about her lips when she spoke. In her
face there was more than the remains of beauty ; the poetry of
intellect and of warm, deep feeling, shed a loveliness over it
seldom witnessed on the brow of a savage. In truth, Malaeska
was a strange and incomprehensible being to the settlers. But
she wasiso quiet; so timid and gentle, that they all loved her,
bought her little wares, and supplied her wants as if she had
been one of themselves. :

There was something beautiful in the companionship which
sprung up between the strange woman and Sarah Jones. The
young girl was benefited by it in a manner which was little to
be expected from an intercourse so singular and, seemingly, so
unnatural: "The mother was a kind-hearted worldly woman,
strongly attached to her family, but utterly devoid of ‘those
fine susceptibilities which make at once the happiness and the
misery of so many human beings. But-all the elements of an
intellectual, delicate, and high-souled woman slumbered in
the bosom of her child. They beamed in the depths of her large
blue eyes, broke over her pure white forehead, like the per-
fume fromthe leaves of a lily, and made her small mouth elo-
quent with smiles and the beauty of unpolished thoughts.

At sixteen the character of the young girl had scarcely be-
gun to develop itself; but when the time arrived when she was

to be sent away to school, there remained little except mere

accomplishments for her to learn. Her mind had become
vigorous by a constant intercourse with the beautiful things
of nature. All the latent Sona of a warm, Pann
heart, and of a superior/intellect, had been gently call
action by the strange’ being who had gained such an ascenden-
cy over her feelings. i

e Indian’ woman, who in herself combined all that was

,

it

ed into.

 

strong, picturesque, and imaginative in savage life, with the
delicacy, sweetness and refinement which follows in the train
of civilization, had trod with her the wild, beautiful scenery of
the neighborhood. They had breathed the pure air of the
mountain together, and watched the crimson and amber clouds
of sunset melt into evening, when pure sweet thoughts came
- their hearts naturally, as light shines through the bosom of
the star. :

It is strange that the pure and simple religion which lifts
the soul up to God, should have been first taught to the beauti-
ful young white from the lips of a savage, when inspired by
the dying glory of a sunset sky. Yet so it was; she had sat
under preaching all her life, had imbibed creeds and shackled
her spirit dewn with the opinions and traditions of other
minds, nor dreamed that the love of God may sometimes kin-
dle in the human heart, like fire flashing up from an altar-
stone; and again, may expand gradually to the influence of
the Divine Spirit, unfolding so gently that the soul scarcely
knows at what time it burst into flower—that every effort we
make, for the culture of the heart and the expanding of the in-

tellect, is a step toward the attainment of religion if nothing

more.

When the pure, simple faith of the Indian was revealed—
when she saw how beautifully high energies and lofty feelings
were mingled with the Christian meekness and enduring faith
of her character, she began to love goodness for its own ex-
ceeding beauty, and to cultivate those qualities that struck her
as so worthy in her wild-wood friend. Thus Sarah attained a
refinement of the soul which no school could have given her,
and no superficial gloss could ever conceal or dim. This re-
finement of principle and feeling lifted the young girl far out
of her former commonplace associations; and the gentle influ-
ence of her character was felt not only in her father’s house-
hold, but through all the neighborhood.

OE arb, 2 bath lias

“She long’d for her mother’s loving kiss,

And her,fathér’s tender words,

And her little sister’s joyous mirth,
Like the song of summer birds.

Her heart went back to the olden home
That her memory knew so well,

Till the veriest trifle of the past
Swept o’er her like a spell.”

Saran JonxEs went to Manhattan at the appointed time, with

“a small trank of clothing and a large basket of provisions; for

a sloop in those days was along time in coming down the

Hudson, even with a fair wind, and its approach to a settle: |

ment made more commotion than the largest Atlantic steamer
could produce at the present day. So the good mother pro-
vided her pretty pilgrim with a Wainy of wonder-cakes, with
biscuits, dried beef, and cheese, enough to keep a company of
soldiers in full rations for days. ¢
Besides all this plenteousness in the commissary depart-
ment, the good lady brought out wonderful, specimens of her
own handiwork in the form of knit. mutftles, fine stockings,
and colored wristlets, that she had been years in knitting for
Sarah’s outfit when she should be called upon to undertake
this perilous adventure into the great world, aia)
Beyond all this, Sarah had keepsakes from the children,
with a store of pretty bracelets and fancy baskets from Mala-
eska, who parted with her in tenderness and sorrow; for once
more like a wild grape-vine, putting out its tendrils every-
where for support, she was cast to the earth again. ci
After all, Sarah did not find the excitement of her journey
so very interesting, and but for the presence of her father on
the sloop, she would have been fairly homesick before the
white sails of the sloop had. rounded the Point. As it was,
she grew thoughtful and almost sad as the somber magnifi-
cence of the scenery unrolled itself. A settlement here and
there broke the forest with smiles of civilization, which she
passed with proud consciousness of seeing the world; but, al-
together, she thought more of the rosy mother and riotous
children at home than of new seenes or new people. — :
At last Manhattan, with its girdle of silver waters, its gables
and its overhanging trees, met her eager look, Here was her
destiny—Lere she was to be taught and polished into a marvel
of gentility. The town was very beautiful, but after the first
novelty gave way, she grew more lonely than ever; evety thing
was SO strange —the winding streets, the gay stores and the

\

 

 

 
 

 

——— eee

MALAESKA, THE INDIAN WIFE OF THE WHITE HUNTER. 21

 

quaint houses, with their peaks and dormer windows, all
seeming to her far too grand for comfort.

To one of these houses Arthur Jones conducted his daughter,
followed by a porter who carried her trunk on one shoulder,
while Jones took charge of the provision-basket, in person.

There was nothing in all this very wonderful, but people
turned to look at the group with more than usual interest, as
it passed, for Sarah had all her mother’s fresh beauty, with
nameless graces of refinement, which made her a very lovely
young creature to look upon.

‘When so many buildings have been raised in a city, so many
trees uprooted, and ponds filled up, it is impossible to give the
localities that formely existed; for all the rural land-marks are
swept away. Bnt, in the olden times, houses had breathing
space for flowers around them in Manhattan, and a man of
note gave his name to the house he residedin. The aristo-
cratic portion of the town was around the Bowling Green and
back into the neighboring streets.

Somewhere in one of these streets, I can not tell the exact
spot, for a little lake in the neighborhood disappeared soon
after our story, and all the pretty points of the scene were de-
stroyed with it—but somewhere, in one of the most respecta-
ble streets, stood a house with the number of gables and win-
dows requisite to perfect gentility, and a large brass plate
spread its glittering surface below the great brass knocker.

his plate set forth, in bright, gold letters, the fact that Mad-
ame Monot, relict of Monsieur ‘Mort who had so distinguish-

_ ed himself as leading teacher in one of the first female semin-

aries in Paris, could be found within, at the head of a select
school for young ladies.

Sarah was overpowered by the breadth and brightness of
this door-plate, and startled by the heavy reverberations of
the knocker. There was something too solemn and grand
about the entrance for tranquillity.

Mr. Jones looked back at her, as he dropped the knocker,
with a sort of tender self-complacency, for he expected that
she would be rather taken aback by the splendor to which he
was bringing her; but Sarah only trembled and grew timid;
she would have given the world to turn and run away any dis-
tance so that in the end she reached home.

The door opened, at least the upper half, and they were ad-
mitted into a hall paved with little Dutch tiles, spotlessly
clean, through which they were led into a parlor barren and
prim in all its appointments, but which was evidently the
grand reception-room of the establishment. Nothing could
have been more desolate than the room, save that it was re-
deemed by two narrow windows which overlooked the angle
of the green inclosure in which the house stood. This angle
was separated by a low wall from what seemed a broad and

spacious garden, well filled with fruit-trees and flowering

shrubbery.

The spring was just putting forth its first buds, and Sarah
forgot the chilliness within as she saw the branches of a young
apple-tree, flushed with the first tender green, drooping over
the wall. It reminded her pleasantly of the orchard at home.

The door opened, and, with a nervous start, Sarah arose
with her father to receive the little Frenchwoman who came
in with a fluttering courtesy, eager to do the honors of her
establishment.

Madame Monot took Sarah out of her father’s hands with a
graceful dash that left no room for appeal. ‘‘ She knew it all
—exactly what the young lady required—what would best
please her very respectable parents—there was no need of ex-
planations—the young lady was fresh as a rose—very charm-
ing—in a few months they should see—that was all—Monsieur
Jones need have no care about his child—Madame would un-
dertake to finish her education very soon—music, of course—
an instrument had just come from Europe on purpose for the
school—then French, nothing easier—Madame could promise
that the young lady should speak French beautifully in one—
two—three—four months, without doubt—Monsieur Jones
might retire very satisfied—his daughter should come back

ifferent—perfect, in fact.”

With all this volubility, poor Jones was half talked, half
courtesied out of the house, without having uttered a single
last word of farewell, or held his daughter one moment against
the honest heart that yearned to carry her off again, despite
his great ambition to see her a lady.

Poor Sarah gazed after him till her eyes were blind with un-
shed tears; then she arose with a heavy heart and followed
Madame to the room which was henceforth to be her refuge
from the most. dreary routine of duties that ever a poor girl
was condemned to. It was a comfort that the windows. over-
looked that beautiful garden. That night, at a long, narrow

 

table, set out with what the unsuspecting girl at first consid-
ered the preliminaries of a meal, Sarah met the score of youn
ladies who were to be her schoolmates. Fortunately she h
no appetite and did not mind the scant fare. Fifteen or
twenty girls, some furtively, others boldly, turning their eyes
upon her, was enough to frighten away the appetite of ‘a less
timid person.

Poor Sarah! of all the homesick school-girls that ever lived,
she was the most lonely. Madame’s patronizing kindness only
sufficed to bring the tears into her eyes which she was strug-
gling so bravely to keep back.

But Sarah was courageous as well as sensitive. She came
to Manhattan to study; no matter if her heart ached, the brain
must work; her father had made great sacrifices to give her
six months at this expensive school; his money and kindness
must not be thrown away.

Thus the brave girl reasoned, and, smothering the haunting
wish for home, she took up her tasks with energy.

Meantime Jones returned home with a heavy heart and a
new assortment of spring goods, that threw every female heart
in Catskill into a flutter of excitement. Every hen’s nest in
the neighborhood was robbed before the eggs were cold, and
its contents transported to the store. As for butter'there was
a universal complaint of its scarcity on the home table, while
Jones began to think seriously of falling a cent on the pound
it came in so abundantly.

CHAPTER X.

°Twas a dear, old fashion’d a
Half sunshine and half shade,
Where all day long the birds and breeze
A pleasaut music made;
And hosts of bright and glowing flowers
Their perfume shed around,
Till it was like a fairy haunt r
That knew no human sound.—FRANK LE BENEDICT,

Ir was a bright spring morning, the sky full of great fleecy
clouds that chased each other over the clear blue, and a light
wind stirring the trees until their opening buds sent forth a
delicious fragrance, that was like a perfumed breath from the
approaching summer.

arah Jones stood by the window of her little room, lookin
wistfully out into the neighboring garden, oppressed by a feel-
ing of loneliness and home-sickness, which made her long to
throw aside her books, relinquish her half-acquired accom-
plishments, and fly back to her quiet country home. ;

It seemed to her that one romp with her brothers through
the old orchard, pete other with the falling buds,
would be worth all the French and music she could learn in a
score of years. The beat of her mother’s lathe in the old fash-
ioned loom, would have been pleasanter music to her ear, than
that of the pianoforte, which she had once thought so d
an affair; but since then she had spent so many weary hours
over it, shed so many tears upon the cold white keys, which
made her fingers ache worse than ever the spinning-wheel had
done, that, like any other school-girl, she was almost inclined
to regard the vaunted piano as an instrument of torture, in-’
vented expressly for her annoyance. :

She was tired of thinking and acting by rule, and though
Madame Monot was kind enough in her way, the discipline to
which Sarah was forced to submit, was very irksome to the
untrained country girl. She was tired of having regular hours
for study—tired of walking out for a stated time in procession
with the other girls—nobody daring to move with any thing
like nattiralness or freedom—and very often she felt almos
inclined to write home and ask them to send for her. ee

It was in a restive, unhappy mood, like the one we have
been describing, that she stood that morning at the window,
when she ought to have been hard at work over the pile of
books which lay neglected upon her little table. .

That pretty garden which she looked down upon, was a sore
temptation to her, and had Madame Monot known how it dis-
tracted Sarah’s attention, there is every reason to believe that
she would have been removed in all haste to the opposite side
of the house, where if she chose to idle at her casement, there
would be nothing more entertaining than a hard brick wall to
look at. Just then, the garden was more attractive than at
any other season of the year, The spring sunshine had made
the shorn turf like a green carpet, the trim flower-beds were
already full of early blossoms, the row of apple-trees was one
great mass of flowers, and the tall pear-tree in the corner was

 

eee
 

   
 

 

 

 

22

NEW AND OLD FRIENDS.

 

just beginning to lose its delicate white leaves, sprinkling
them daintily over the grass, where they fluttered about like a
host of tiny butterflies.

The old-fashioned stoop that opened from the side of the
house into the garden was covered with a wild grape-vine,
that clambered up to the pointed Dutch gables, hung down
over the narrow windows, and twined and tangled itself about
a freely and luxuriantly as it could have done in its native

orest.

Sarah watched for the gardener as he went soberly about
his various duties, and she envied him the privilege of wan-
dering at will among the grayeled walks, pausing under the
trees and bending over the flower-beds.

Perhaps in these days, when nothing but scentless japonicas
and rare foreign plants are considered endurable, that garden
would be an ordinary affair enough, at which no well-trained
boarding-school miss would condescend to look for an in-
stant; but to Sarah Jones it was a perfect little paradise.

The lilac bushes nodded in the wind, shaking their purple
and white plumes, like groups of soldiers on duty; great
masses of snow-balls stood up in the center of the beds;
peonies, violets, lilies of the valley, tulips, syringas, and a host
of other dear old-fashioned flowers, lined the walks; and,
altogether, the garden was lovely enough to justify the poor

ir’s admiration. There she stood, quite forgetful of her

uties; the clock in the hall struck its warning note—she did
not even hear it; some one might at any moment enter and
surprise her in the midst of her idleness and disobedience—
she never once thought of it, so busily was she watching every-
thing in the garden.

The man finished his morning’s work and went away, but
Sarah did not move.. A pair of robins had flown into the
tall pear-tree, and were holding an animated conversation, in-
terspersed with bursts and gushes of song. They flew from
one tree to another, once hovering near the grape-vine, but
returned to the pear-tree at last, sung, chirped, and danced
about in frantic glee, and at last made it evident that they in-
tended to build'a nest in that very tree. Sarah could have
clapped her hands with delight! It was just under her window
—she could watch them constantly, study or no study. She
worked herself into such a state of excitement at the thought,
that Madame Monot would have been shocked out of her pro-
prieties at seeing one of her pupils guilty of such folly.

The clock again struck—that time in such a sharp, reprov-
ing way, that it reached even Sarah’sear. She started, looked
nervously round, and saw the heap of books upon the table.

“Oh, dear me,” she sighed; ‘‘ those tiresome lessons! I
had forgotten all about them, Well, I will go to studying in
a moment,” she added, asif addressing her conscience or her
fears. ‘‘ Oh, that robin—how he dves sing.”

She forgot her books again, and just at that moment there

‘was a new object of interest added to those which the garden

already possessed.

The side door of the house opened, and an old gentlemen
stepped out upon the broad stoop, stood there for a few mo-
ments, evidently enjoying the morning air, then poser slowly
down. the steps into the garden, supporting himse 1
cane, and walking with considerable care and difficulty, like
any feeble old man.

arah had often seen him before, and she knew very well
who he was. He was the owner of the house that the simple
girl so coveted, and his name was Danforth.

She had learned every thing about him, as a school-gir) is
sure to do concerning any person or thing that strikes her
fancy. He was very wey indeed, and had no family ex-
cept his wife, the tidiest,ddrling old lady, who often walked
in the garden herself, and always touched the flowess, as she
passed, as if they had been pet. children.

The venerable old pair had a grandson, but he was away in
Europe, so they lived in their pleasant mansion quite alone,
with the exception of a few domestics, who looked nearly as
aged and respectable as their master and mistress.

Sarah had speculated a great deal about her neighbors. She
did so long to know them, to be free to run around in their
garden, and sit in the pleasant rooms that overlooked it, glimp-
ses of which she had often obtained through the open windows,
when the housemaid was putting things to rights,

Sarah thought that she nigh possibly be a little afraid of
the old gentleman, he looked so stern ; but his wife she longed

to kiss and make friends with at once; she looked so gentle
and kind, that even a bird could not have been afraid of her.
Sarah watched Mr. Danforth walk slowly down the princi-
ple garden-path, and seat himself in a little arbor overrun b
2 trumpet honeysuckle, which was not yet in blossom, al-

f by his stout —

 

though there were faint traces of red among the green leaves,
which gave promise of an ample store of blossoms hefere
many weeks. is

He sat there some fime, apparently enjoying the sunshine
that stole in through the leaves. At length Sarah saw him
rise, move toward the entrance, pause an instant, totter, then
fall heavily upon the ground.

She did not wait even to cry out—every energy of her free,
strong nature was aroused. She flew out of her room down
the stairs, fortunately encountering neither teachers nor pupils,
and hurried out of the street-door.

The garden was separated from Madame Monot’s narrow
yard by a low stone wall, along the top of which ran a picket
fence. Sarah saw a step-ladder that had been used by a ser-
vant in washing windows; she seized it, dragged it to the
wall, and sprung lightly from thence into the garden.

It seemed to‘her that she would never reach the spot where
the poor gentleman was lying, although, in truth, scarcely
three minutes had elapsed between the time that she saw him
fall and reached the place where he lay.

Sarah stooped over him, raised his head, and knew at once
what was the matter—he had been seized with apoplexy.
She had seen‘her grandfather die with it, and recognized the
symptoms at once. It was useless to think of carrying him,
so she loosened his neckcloth, lifted his head upon the arbor
seat, and darted toward the house, calling with all her might
the name by which she had many times heard the gardener
address the black cook.

‘*Eunice! Eunice!”

At her frantic summons, out from the kitchen rushed the
old woman, followed by several of her satellites, all screaming
at once to know what was the matter, and wild with astonish-
ment at the sight of a stranger in the garden.

“Quick! quick!” cried Sarah. ‘Your master has been
taken with a fit; come and carry him into the house. One
of you run for a doctor.” :

““ Oh, de laws! oh, dear! oh, dear!” resounded on every
side ; but Sarah directed them with so much energy that the
women, aided by an old negro who had been roused by the
disturbance, conveyed their master into the house, and laid
him upon a bed in one of the lower rooms.

‘Where is your mistress?” questioned Sarah.

‘Oh, she’s gwine out,” sobbed the cook; ‘‘ oh, my poor ole
massar, my poor ole massar!”

““Have you sent for the doctor?”

“ “Yes, young miss, yes; he'll be here in a minit; bress yer
pooty face.”

Sarah busied herself over the insensible man, applying ev-
ery remedy that she could remember of having seen her moth-
er use when her grandfather was ill, and really did the very
things that ought to have been done.

It was not long before the doctor arrived, bled his patient
freely, praised Sarah’s presence of mind, and very soon the
old gentleman returned to consciousness.

Sarah heard one of the servants exclaim: ‘‘ Oh, dar’s mis-
sus, praise de Lord!”

A sudden feeling of shyness seized the girl, and she stole
out of the room and went into the garden, determined to es-
cape unseen. But before she reached the arbor she heard one
of the servants calling after her. p

‘“Young miss! young miss! Please to wait; ole missus
wants to speak to you.”

Sarah turned and walked toward the house, ready to burst
into tears with timidity and excitement. But the lady whom
she had so longed to know, came down the steps aah moved
toward her, holding out her hand. She was very pale, and
shaking from head to foot; but she spoke with a certain calm-
ness, which it was evident she would retain under the most
trying circumstances.

“T can not thank you,” she said; ‘‘if it had not been for
you I should never have seen my husband alive again.”

Sarah began to sob, the old lady held out her arms, and the

- frightened girl actually fell into them. There they stood for

a few moments, weeping in each other’s embrace, and by
those very tears establishing a closer intimacy than years of
common intercourse would have done. :

‘How did you happen to see him fall?” asked the old lady. ,

“*T was looking out of my window,” replied Sarah, point-
ing to her open casement, ‘‘ and when I saw it I ran over at
once.

‘You are a pupil of Madame Monot’s, then?”

‘““Yes—and, oh my, I must go back! They will scold me
dreadfully for being away pe

“Deo not be afraid,” said Mrs Danforth, keeping fast hold

 

 

 
 

 

MALAESKA, THE INDIAN WIFE OF THE WHITE HUNTER.

of her hand when she tried to break away.
your excuses to Madame; come into the house.
you go yet.”

She led Sarah into the house, and seated her in an easy-
chair in the old-fashioned sitting-room.

‘‘ Wait here a few minutes, if you please, my dear.

go to my husband,”
' She went away and left Sarah quite confused with the
strangeness of the whole affair. Here she was, actually seat-
ed in the very apartment she had so desired to enter—the old
lady she had so longed to know addressing her as if she had
been a favorite child.

She peeped out of the window toward her late prison; every
thing looked quiet there, as usual. She wondered what dread-
ful penance she would be made to undergo, and decided that
even bread and water for two days would not be so great a
hardship, when she had the incident of the morning to reflect
upon.

"She looked about the room with its quaint furniture, every
thing so tidy and elegant, looking as if a speck of dust had
never by any accident settled in the apartment, and thinking
it the prettiest place she had seen in her life.

Then she began thinking about the poor sick man, and
worked herself into a fever of anxiety to hear tidings concern-
ing him. Just then a servant entered with a tray of refresh-
ments, and set it on the table near her, saying:

‘Please, miss, my missus says you must be hungry, ’cause
it’s your dinner time.”

“« And how is your master?” Sarah asked.

“Bery comfortable now; missee’ll be here in a minute.
Now please to eat sunfin.”

Sarah was by no means loth to comply with the invitation,
for the old cook had piled the tray with all sorts of delicacies,
that presented a pleasing contrast to the plain fare she had
been accustomed to of late.

By the time she had finished her repast Mrs. Danforth re-
turned, looking more composed and relieved. i

“The doctor gives me a great deal of encouragement,” she
said; ‘‘my husband is able to speak; by to-morrow he will
thank you better than I can.”

“Oh, no,” stammered Sarah; “I don’t want any thanks,
please, I didn’t—I—”

She fairly broke down, but Mrs. Danforth patted her hand
and said kindly :

“T understand.
much.”

Sarah felt her heart flutter and her cheeks glow... The blush
and smile on that young face.were a more fitting answer than
words could have given.,

“JT have sent an explanation of your absence to Madame
Monot,” continued Mrs. Danforth, “and she has given you
vermission to spend the day with me; so you need have no
fear of being blamed.”

The thought of a whole day’s freedom was exceedingly
Pleasant to Sarah, particularly when it was to be spent in
that old house, which had always appeared as interesting to
her as a story. It required but a short time for Mrs. Dan-
forth and her to become well acquainted, and the old lady
was charmed with her loveliness, and natural, graceful man-
ners.

She insisted upon accompanying Mrs, Danforth into the
sick-room, and made herself so useful there, that the dear
lady mentally wondered how she had ever got on without
her.

When Sarah returned to her home that night, she felt that
sense of relief which any one who has led a monotonous life
for mouths must have experienced, when some sudden event
has changed its whole current, and given a new coloring to
things that before appeared tame and insignificant.

During the following days Sarah was a frequent visitor at
Mr. Danforth’s house, and after that, circumstances occurred
which drew her into still. more intimate companionship with
her new friend.

One of Madame Monot’s house-servants was taken ill with
typhus fever, and most of the young ladies left the school for
afew weeks. Mrs. Danforth insisted upon Sarah’s making
her home at their house during the interval, an invitation
which she accepted with the utmost delight.

Mr. Danforth still lingered—could speak and move—but
the favorable symptoms which at first presented themselves
had entirely disappeared, and there was little hope given that
he could do more than.linger for a month or two longer.
During that painful season Mrs. Danforth found in Sarah a
sympathizing and consoling friend. The sick man himself be-

“TY will make
I can not let

I must

But at least you must let me love you very

 

EE

   

23

came greatly attached to her, and could not bear that she
should even leave his chamber. :

The young girl was very happy in feeling herself thus prized
and Joved, and the quiet weeks spent in that old house were
perhaps among the happiest of her life, in spite of the sadden-
ing associations which surrounded her.

One morning while she was sitting with the old gentleman,
who had grown so gentle and dependent that those who had
known him in former years would scarcely have recognized
him, Mrs. Danforth entered the room, bearing seyeral letters
in her hand.

‘* Kuropean letters, my dear,” she said, to her husband, and
while she put on her glasses and seated herself to read them,
Sarah stole out into the garden.

She had not been there long, enjoying the fresh loveliness
of the day, before she heard Mrs. Danforth call her.

“Sarah, my dear; Sarah.”

The girl went back to the door where the old Jady stood.

“Share a little good news with me in the midst of all our
trouble,’ she said; ‘“‘my dear boy—my grandson—is coming
home.”

Sarah’s first thought was one of regret—every thing would
be so changed by the arrival of a stranger; but that was only
a passing pang of selfishness; her next reflection was one of
unalloyed delight, for the sake of that aged couple.

‘“*Tam very glad;dear madame; his coming will do his
grandfather so much good.”

“Yes, indeed; more than ali the doctors in the world.”

“ When do you expect him ?”

“Any day; now ; he was to sail in a few days after the ship
that brought these letters, and as this vessel has been detained
by an accident, le can not be far away.”

“Tam to go back to school to-day,” said Sarah, regret-
fully. s

“But you will be with us almost as much,” replied Mrs.
Danforth. “I have your mother’s permission, and will go
myself to speak with Madame. You will run over every day
to your lessons, but you will live here; we can not. lose our
pet so soon.”

“ You are very kind—oh, so kind,” Sarah said, quite radiant
at the thought of not being confined any longer in the dark
old school-building.

“Tt is you who are good to us. But come, we will go over
now ; I must tel] Madame Monot at once.”

The explanations were duly made, and Ssrah returned to
her old routine of lessons; but her study-room was now the
garden, or any place in Mr. Danforth’s house that she fancied.

The old gentleman was better again; able to be wheeled
out of doors into the sunshine; and there was nothing he
liked so much as sitting in the garden, his wife knitting by his
side, Sarah studying at his feet, and the robins singing in the
pear-trees overhead, as if feeling it a sacred duty to pay their
rent by morning advances of melody.

CHAPTER XI.

A welcome to the homestead—
The gables and the trees;

And welcome to the true hearte,
As the sunshine and the breeze.

One bright morning, several weeks after Mr. Danforth’s

attack, the three were seated in their favorite nook in the
arden. ;

r It was-a holiday with Sarah ; there were no lessons to study ;
no exercises to practice ; no duty more irksome than that of
reading the newspaper aloud to the old gentleman, who par-
ticularly fancied her fresh, happy Voice. :

Mrs. Danforth was occupied with her knitting, and Sarah
sat at their feet upon’a low stool, looking so much like a favo-
rite young relative that it was no*wonder if the old pair forgot
that she was unconnected with them save by the bonds of
affliction, and regarded her as being, in reality, as much a part
of their family as they considered her in their hearts. ~ 5

While they sat there, some sudden noise attracted Mrs.
Danforth’s attention ; she rose and went into the house so
quietly that the others scarcely noticed her departure. 1

It was not long before she came out'again, walking very
hastily for hey, and with such a tremulous flutter in her man-
ner, that Sar4h regarded her in surprise.

“William!” she said to her husband, “ William !”

‘

 
    

 

 

 

 

Fit
IH
HE

 

 

    

24

He roused himself from the partial doze into which he had

allen, and looked up.

“Did you speak to me?” he asked.

“T have good news for you. Don’t be agitated—it is all
pleasant.” ;

He struggled up from his seat, steadying his trembling hand
upon his staff.

. “My boy has come!” he exclaimed, louder and more clearly
than he had spoken for weeks ; ‘‘ William, my boy !”

At the summons, a young man came out of the house and
ran toward them. The old gentleman flung his. arms about
his neck and strained him close to his heart.

“ My boy !” was all he could say ; ‘‘ my William !”

When they had all grown somewhat calmer, Mrs. Danforth —

called Sarah, who was standing at a little distance.

“T want you to know and thank this young lady, William,”
she said ; “ your grandfather and I owe her a great. deal.”

She gave hima brief account of the old gentleman’s fall,
and Sarah’sspresence of mind; but the girl’s crimson cheeks
warned her to pause.

“No words can repay such kindness,” said the young man,

as he relinquished her hand, over which he had bowed with

the ceremonious respect of the time,

“It is I who owe a great deal to your grandparents,” Sarah
replied, a little tremulously, but trying to shake off the timid-
ity which she felt beneath his dark eyes. “I was a regular
prisoner like any other school-girl, and they had the goodness
to open the door and let me out.”

“Then fidgety old Madame Monot had you in charge?”
young Danforth said, laughing; “I can easily understand that
it must be arelief to get occasionally where you are not
obliged to wait and think by rule.”

‘“There—there!” said the old lady; “William is encour-
aging insubordination already; you will be a bad counselor
for Sarah.”

Both she and her husband betrayed the utmost satisfaction
at the frank and cordial conversation which went on between
the young pair; and in an hour Sarah was as much at ease as
if she had been gathering wild flowers in her native woods.

Danforth gave them long and amusing accounts of his ad-

“ yentures, talked naturally and well of the countries he had

visited, the notable places he had seen, and never had man
three more attentive auditors. ‘

That was a delightful day to Sarah; and as William Dan-
forth had not lost, in his foreign wanderings, the, freshness
and enthusiasm pleasant in youth, it was full of enjoyment to
him likewise. :

There was something so innocent in Sarah’s loveliness—

something so unstudied in her graceful manner, that the very
contrast she presented to the artificial women of the world
with whom he had been of late familiar, gave her an ad-
ditional charm in the eye of the young man.
_ Many times, while they talked, Mrs. Danforth glanced anx-
iously toward her husband; but his smile reassured her, and
there stole over her pale face a light from within which told
of some pleasant vision that had brightened the winter season
of her heart, and illuminated it with a reflected light almost as
beautiful as that which had flooded it in its spring-time, when
her dreams were of her own future, and the aged, decrepit
man by her side a stalwart youth, noble and brave as the boy
in whom their past seemed once more to live.

“Tf Madame Monot happens to see me’she will be shocked,”
Sarah said, laughingly. ‘She told me that she hoped I would

“ improve my holiday by reading some French sermons that

she gave me.” i
“And have you looked at them?” Danforth asked. i
“Tam afraid they are mislaid,”’ she replied, mischievously.
_ ‘Not greatly to your annoyance, I fancy? I think if I had
been obliged to learn French from old-fashioned, sermons, it
would have taken me a long time to acquire the language.”
“YT don’t think much at Biench sermons,’ remarked Mrs.
Danforth, with a doubtful shake of the head.
“Nor of the people,” added her husband ; “you never did
like them, Therese.” _ {
_ She nodded assent, and young Danforth addressed Sarah in
Madame Monot’s much-vaunted language. She answered him
hesitatingly, and they held a little chat, he laughing good-nat-
uredly at her mistakes and assisting her to correct them, a
proceeding which the old couple enjoyed as much asthe young
pals, so, fbi avast amount of quiet amusement grew out of
e affair,

t : ite '

They spent the whole morning in the garden, and when
Sarah went up to her room fora time to be alone with the
new world of thought which had opened upon her, she felt

 

 
 

   

Se

NEW AND OLD FRIENDS.

as if she had known William Danforth half her life. She
did not attempt to analyze her feelings; but, they were very
pleasant and filled her soul with a delicious restlessness like
me of agony struggling from the heart of a song-bird.
erhaps Danforth made no more attempt than she to under-
stand the emotions which had been aroused within him; but
they were both very happy; careless as the young are sure to
be, and so they went on toward the beautiful dream that
brightens every life, and which spread before them in the
nearing future. ;

And so the months rolled on, and that pleasant old Dutch
house grew more and more like a paradise each day. An-
other and another quarter was added to Sarah’s school-term.
She saw the fruit swell from its blossoms into form till its
ee and mellow ripeness filled the garden with fragrance.

hen she saw the leaves drop from the trees and take a thou-
sand gorgeous dyes from the frost. Still the old garden was
a paradise. She saw those leaves grow crisp and sere, rust-
ling to her step with mournful sighs, and giving themselves
with shudders to the cold wind. Still the ‘garden was para-
dise. She saw the snow fall, white and cold, over lawn and
gravel-walk, bending down the evergreens and tender shrubs,
while long, bright icicles hung along the gables or broke into
fragments on the ground beneath. Still the garden was par-
adise; for love has no season, and desolation is unknown
where he exists, even though his sacred presence is unsuspect-
ed. Long before the promised period arrived, there was no
falsehood in Madame Monot’s assertion that her pupil should
be perfect; fora lovelier or more graceful young creature
than Sarah Jones could not well exist. “How it would have
been had she been entirely dependent on the school-teachers
for her lessons, I can not pretend to say; but the pleasant
studies which were so delicately aided in that old summer-
house, while the old people sat by just out of ear-shot—as
nice old people should on such occasions—were effective
enough to build up half a dozen schools, if the progress of one
pupil would suffice. :

At such times old Mrs. Danforth would look up blandly
from her work and remark in an innocent way to her husband,
“that it was really beautiful to see how completely Sarah took
to her lessons and how kindly William stayed at home to help
her. Really,” she thought, “traveling abroad did improve
a person’s disposition wonderfully. It gives a young man so
much steadiness of character. There was William, now, who
was so fond of excitement, and never could be persuaded to
stay at home before, he could barely be driven across the
threshold now.” :

The old man listened to these remarks with a keen look of
the eye; he was asking himself the reason of this change in
his grandson, and the answer brought a grim smile to his lips.
The fair girl, who was now almost one of his household, had

, become so endeared to him that he could not bear the idea of

ever parting with her again, and the thought that the heir of
his name and property might yet persuade her to make the
relationship closer still had grown almost into a passion with
the old man. _

This state of things lasted only a few months. Before the
leaves fell, a change came upon Mr. Danforth. He was for
some time more listless and oppressed than usual, and seemed
to be looking into the distance for some thought that had dis-
turbed him. One day, without preliminaries, he began to talk
with his wife about William’s father, and, for the first time
in years, mentioned his unhappy marriage.

“T have sometimes thought,” said the lady, bending over
her work to conceal the emotion that stirred her face, ‘‘I
have sometimes thought that we should have told our grand-
son of all this years ago.”

The old man’s hand began to tremble on the top of his cane.
His eyes grew troubled and he was a long time in aE

“Tt is too late now—we must let the secret die with us. It
would crush him forever. I was a proud man in those days,”
he said, at last; ‘‘proud and stubborn. God has smitten me
therefore, I sometimes think. The thought of that poor wo-
man, whose child I took away, troubles me at nights. Tell
me, Therese, if you know any thing about her. he day of
my sickness I went to the lodge in Weehawken where she
was last seen, hoping to find her, praying for time to make
atonement; but the lodge was in ruins—no one could be found
who even remembered her. It had cost me a a“ effort to

‘o, and when the disappointment came, T fell beneath it.
Pel me, Therese, if you have heard-any thing of Malaerka?”

The good lady was silent; but she grew pale, and the work
trembled in her hands. es

‘“'You will not speak?” said the old man, sharply.

 

 

 
 

 

eee 7. nen

MALAESEA, THE INDIAN WIFE OF THE WHITE HUNTER. 95

 

_ ‘ Yes,” said the wife, gently laying down her work, and
lifting her compassionate eyes to the keen face bending to-
ward her, ‘‘I did hear, from some Indians that came to the
tur-stations up the river, that an—that Malaeska went back
to her tribe.”

‘“There is something more,” questioned the old man—
“‘something you keep back.”

The poor wife attempted to shake her head, but she could
hot, even by a motion, force herself toan untruth. So, drop-
ping both hands in her lap, she shrunk away from his glance,
and the tears began to roll down her cheeks.

‘‘ Speak!” said the old man hoarsely.

She answered, in a voice low and hoarse as his own, ‘‘ Ma-
laeska went to her tribe; but they have cruel laws, and look-
ing upon her as a traitor in giving her son to us, sent her into
the woods with one who was chosen to kill her.”

The old man did not speak, but his eyes opened wildly,
and he fell forward upon his face.

William and Sarah were coquetting with her lessons, under
the old pear tree; between the French phrases, he had been
whispering something sweeter than words ever sounded to her
before in any language, and her cheeks were one flush of ro-
ses as his breath floated over them.

‘Tell me—look at me—any thing to say that you have
known this all along,” he said, bending his flashing eyes on
her face with a glance that made her tremble.

She attempted to look up, but failed in the effort. Like a
rose that feels the sunshine too warmly, she drooped under
the glow of her own blushes.

‘* Do speak,” he pleaded.

“Yes,” she answered, lifting her face with modest firmness
to his. ‘‘ Yes, I do love you.”

As the words left her lips, a ery made them both start.

‘« It is grandmother’s voice; he is ill again,” said the young
man.

They moved away, shocked by a sudden recoil of feelings.
A moment brought them in sight of the old man, who la
prostrate on the earth. His wife was bending over him, stri-
‘ving to loosen his dress with her withered little hands.

‘“Oh, come,” she pleaded, with a look of helpless distress;

» help me untie this, or he will never breathe again.”

It was all useless; the old man never did breathe again. A
single blow had smitten him down. They bore him into the
house, but the leaden weight of his body, the limp fall of his
limbs, all revealed the mournful truth too plainly. It was

. death—sudden and terrible death.

If there is an object on earth calculated to call forth the
‘best sympathies of humanity, it is an ‘‘ old widow ”—a wo-
‘man who has spent the spring, noon, and autumn of life, till

it verges into winter, with one man, the first love of her
youth, the last love of her age—the spring-time when love is
:a passionate sentiment, the winter-time when it is august.

In old age men or women seldom resist trouble—it comes,

and they bow to it. So it was with this widow: she uttered
.no complaints, gave way to no wild outbreak of sorrow—
»**she was lonesome—very lonesome without, him,” that was
vall her moan; but the raven threads that lay in the snow of
‘her hair, were lost in the general whiteness before the funeral
‘nas over, and after that she began to bend a little, using his
staff to lean on. It was mournful to see how fondly her
wrinkled hands would cling around the head, and the way
oe had of resting her delicate chin upon it, exactly as he had
done.

But even his staff, the stout prop of his waning manhood,
“was not strong enough to keep that gentle old woman from
“the ao She carried it to the last, but one day it stood un-

used by the bed, which was white and cold as the snow-drift
“through which they dug many feet before they could lay her
by her husband’s side.

CHAPTER XII.

Put blossoms on the mantel-piece,
Throw sand upon the floor,

A guest is coming to the house,
That never came before.

‘SARAH JonEs had been absent several months, when a ru-
‘mor got abroad in the village, that the schoolsgirl had made a
‘proud conquest in Manhattan. It was said that Squire Jones
“had received letters from a wealthy merchant of that place,
-and that he was going down the river to conduct his daughter
“home, when a wedding would soon follow, and Sarah Jones

de made a lady ~

 

 

This report gained much of its probability from the de-
meanor of Mrs. Jones. Her port became more lofty when
she appeared in the street, and she was continually throwing
out insinuations and half-uttered hints, as if her heart were
panting to unburden itself of some proud secret, which she .
was not yet at liberty to reveal.

When Jones actually started for’ Manhattan, and it was
whispered about that his wife had taken a dress-pattern of
rich chintz from the store, for herself, and had bought. each
of the boys a new wool hat, conjecture became almost cer-
tainty; and it was asserted boldly, that Sarah Jones was com-
ing home to be married to a man as rich as all out-doors, and
that her mother was beginning to hold her head above com-
mon folks on the strength of it.

About three weeks after this report was known, Mrs. Jones,
whose motions were watched with true village scrutiny, gave
demonstrations of a thorough house-cleaning, An old wo-
man, who went out to days’ work, was called in to help, and
there were symptoms of slaughter observable in the barn-
yard one ni at after the turkeys and chickens had gone to
roost; all of which kept the public mind ina state of pleasant
excitement. Early the next morning, after the barn-yard
massacre, Mrs. Jones was certainly a very busy woman. All
the morning was occupied in sprinkling white sand on the
nicely-scoured floor of the out-room or parlor, which she
swept very expertly into a series of angular figures called her-
ring bones, with a new splint broom. After this, she filled
the fire-place with branches of hemlock and white pine,
wreathed a garland of asparagus, crimson with berries, around
the little looking-glass, and, dropping on one knee, was filling
a large pitcher on the hearth from an armful of wild-flowers,
which the boys had brought her from the woods, when the
youngest son came hurrying up from the Point, to inform her
that a sloop had just hove in sight and was making full sail
up the river. :

‘Oh, dear, I shan’t be half ready!” exclaimed the alarmed
housekeeper, snatching up a handful of meadow-lilies, mot-
tled so heavily with dark-crimson spots, that the golden bells
seemed drooping beneath a weight of rubies and small garnet _
stones, and crowding them down into the pitcher amid the
rosy spray of wild honeysuckle-blossoms, and branches of
flowering dogwood. ;

. rome Ned, give me the broom, quick! and don’t shuffle
over the sand so. There, now,” she continued, gathering up
the fragments of leaves and flowers from the hearth, and
glancing hastily around the room, “I wonder if any thing else
is wanting ?”

Every thing seemed in order, even to her critical eyes. The
tea-table stood in one corner, its round top turned down and
its polished surface reflecting the, herring-bones drawn in the
sand, with the distinctness of a mirror. The chairs were in
their exact places, and the new crimson moreen cushions and
valance decorated the settee, in all the brilliancy of their first
gloss. Yes, nothing more was to be done, still the good wo-
man passed her apron over the speckless table and flirted it
across a chair or two, before she went out, quite determined
that no stray speck of dust should disgrace her child on com-
ing home. :

(rs. Jones closed the door, and hurried up to the square
bedroom, to be certain that all was right there also. A patch-
work quilt, pierced in what old ladies call “a rising sun,”
radiated, in tints of red, green, and yellow, from the center
of the bed down. to the snow-white valances. A portion of
the spotless homespun sheet was carefully turned over the
upper edge of the quilt, and the whole was surmounted by a
pair of pillows, white as a pile of newly-drifted snow-flakes.
A pot of roses, on the window-sill, shed a delicate reflection
over the muslin curtains looped up on either side of the sash ;
and the fresh wind, as it swept through, scattered their fra-
grant breath deliciously through the little room,

Mrs. Jones gave a satisfied look and then hurried to the
chamber prepared for her daughter, and began to array her
comely person in the chintz dress, which had created such a
sensation in the village. She had just incased her arms in
the sleeves, when the door partly opened, and the old woman,
who had been hired for a few. days_as “help,” put her head
through the opening. “I say, Miss Jones, I can’t find noth-
in’ to make the stuffin’ out on.” sigs

‘““My goodness ! isn’t that turkey in the oven yet? I do be-
lieve, if I could be cut into a hundred pieces, it wouldn’t be
enough for this house. What do you come to me for ?—
don’t you know enough to make a little stuffing without my
help?’ ;

“Only give me enough to do it with, and if I don’t, why,

  
    

Sa EE

i
H
i]
Ht

 

 

peas

 

 

 

26

‘there don’t nobody, that’s all; but I’ve been a-looking all over
for’ some sausengers, and can’t find none, nowhere.”

“Sausages ? Why, Mrs. Bates, you don’t think that I would
allow that fine turkey to be stuffed with sausages ?”

“T don’t know nothin” about it, but I tell you just what
it is, Miss Jones, if you are a-growing so mighty partie’lar
about your victuals, just cause your darter’s a-coming home
with a rich beau, you'd better cook ’em ‘yourself; nobody
craves the job,” retorted the old woman, in her shrillest voice,
shutting the door with a jar that shook the whole apartment.

“ Now the cross old thing will go off just to spite me,” mut-
tered Mrs. Jones, trying to smother her vexation, and, open-
ing the door she called to the angry “help:”

“Why, Mrs. Bates, do come back; you did not stay to hear
me out. Save the chickens’ livers and chop them up with
bread and butter; season it nicely, and I dare say, you will be
as well pleased with it as can be.” .

“Well, and if I du, what shall I season with—sage or sum-
mer-savory? I’m sure I’m willing to du my best,” answered
the partially mollified old woman.

“A little of both, Mrs. Bates—oh, dear! won’t you come
«back and see if you can make my gown meet? There—do I
“look fit to be seen?”

“Now, what do you ask that for, Miss Jones? you know
you look as neat asa new pin. This is a mighty purty calerco,
ain’t it, though ?”

The squire’s lady had not forgotten all the feelings of her

~ younger days. The old woman’s compliment had its effect.

“T will send down to the store for some tea and molasses
for you to take home to-night, Mrs. Bates, and—”

“Mother! mother!” shouted young Ned, bolting into the
room, “the sloop. has tacked, andis making for the creek. I
see three people on the deck, and I’m almost sure father was
one of them—they will be here in no time.”

‘“Gracious me!” muttered the old woman, hurrying away
to the kitchen.

Mrs, Jones smoothed down the folds of her new dress

_ With both hands, as she ran down to the “ out-room.” She
took her station in a stiff, high-backed chair by the window,
with a look of consequential gentility, as if she had done

_ nothing but sit still and receive company all her life.

After a few minutes’ anxious watching, she saw her hus-
band and daughter coming up from the creek, accompanied
by a slight, dark and remarkably graceful young man, ela-
borately, but not. gayly dressed, for the fashion of the time,
and betraying even in his air and walk peculiar traits of high-
breeding -and refinement. His head was slightly bent, and
he seemed to be addressing the young lady, who leaned on his
arm. :

The mother’s heart beat high with mingled pride and affee-
tion, ag she gazed on her beautiful daughter’ thus’ proudly
escorted home. There was triumph in the thought, that al-
most every person in the village might witness the air of gal-
lantry and homage with. which she was regarded by the hand-
somest and richest merchant of Manhattan. She saw that
her child locked eagerly toward ‘the house as they approach-
ed, and that her step was rapid as if impatient of the quiet
progress of her companions. Pride was lost in the heart
thrill of maternal affection which shot through the mother’s
breast. She forgot all her plans, in the dear wish to hold her
first-born once more to ‘her ‘bosom; and ran to the door, her
face beaming with joy, her arms outstretched, and’ her lips
trembling with the warmth of their own welcome.

The next moment her child was clinging about her, lavish-
ing kisses on her handsome mouth, and checking her caresses
to gaze up through the mist of tears and smiles'which deluged
her own sweet face, to the glad eyes that looked down so
fondly upon her.

““Oh, mother! dear, dear mother, how glad I am to get
home! Where are the boys? where is little Ned?” inquired
the happy girl, rising from her mother’s drms, and looking
round for other objects of affectionate regard.

‘Sarah, don’t you intend to let me speak to’ your mother?”
inquired the father, in a voice which told how truly his heart
was in the scene. i

Sarah withdrew from her mother’s arms, blushing and smil-
ing through her tears; the husband and wife shook hands
half a dozen times over; Mrs. Jones asked “him how he had
been, what kind of a voyage he had made, how he liked Man-
hattan, and a dozen other Sen all in a breath: and then
the stranger was introduced. Mrs. Jones forgot the dignified

courtesy which she had intended to perpetrate on the entrance
of her guest, and shook him heartily by the hand, as if she
had been acquainted with him from his cradle.

 

 

NEW AND OLD FRIENDS.

z

When the happy group entered the parlor, they found Ar-
thur, who had been raised to the dignity of storekeeper in the
father’s absence, ready to greet his parent and sister; and the
younger children huddled together at the door which led to
the kitchen, brimful of joy at the father’s return, and yet too
much afraid of the stranger to enter the room. ; R

Altogether, it was as cordial, warm-hearted a reception as a
man could reasonably wish on his return home; and, fortu-
nately for Mrs. Jones, the warmth of herown natural feeling
saved her the ridicule of trying to get up a genteel scene, for
the edification of her future son-in-law.

About half an hour after the arrival of her friends, Mrs.
Jones was passing from the kitchen, where she had seen the
turkey placed in the oven, with its portly bosom rising above
the rim of a dripping-pan, his legs tied together, and his
wings tucked snugly over his back, when she met her hus-
band in the passage. :

‘“ Well,” said the wife, in a cautious voice, “‘has ever
thing turned out well—is he so awful rich as your letter said?”

‘There can be no doubt about that; he is as rich as a Jew,
and as proud asa lord. I can tell youwhat, Sarah’s made the
best match in America, let the other be-what it will,” replied
the squire, imitating the low tone of his questioner.

‘What an eye he’s got, hasn’t he? I never saw any thing
so black and piercing in my life. He’s very handsome, too,
only a little darkish—I don’t wonder the girl took a fancy to
him. I say, has any thing been said about the wedding?”

““Tt must be next week, for he wants to go back to Man-
hattan in a few days; he and Sarah will manage that without
our help, I dare say.” Here Mr. and Mrs. Jones looked at
each other and smiled.

‘“T say, squire, I want to ask you one question,” interrup-
ted Mrs. Bates, coming through the kitchen door and sidling
up to the couple: ‘is that watch which the gentleman carries
rale genuine gold, or on’y pinchbeck? I'd give any thing on
’arth to find out.”

‘“*T believe it’s gold, Mrs. Bates.”

‘“Now du tell! What, rale Guinea gold? ‘Now, if that
don’t beat all natur’, Iruther guess Miss Sarah’s feathered
her nest this time, anyhow. Now, squire, du tell a body,
when is the wedding to be? I won’t tell a single ’arthly crit-
ter, if you'll on’y jest give me a hint.”

“You must ask Sarah,” replied Mr. Jones, following his
wife into the parlor; ‘‘I never meddle with young folks’
affairs.”

“Now, did you ever?” muttered the old woman, when she
found herself alone in the passage. ‘‘ Never mind; if I don’t
find out afore I go home to-night, I lose my guess, that’s all.
I should jest like to know what they’re talking about this
minute.”

Here the old woman crouched down and put her ear to the
erevice under the parlor door; in a few moments she scram-
bled up and hurried off into the kitchen again, just in time
to save herself from being pushed over by the opening door.

Sarah Jones returned home the same warm-hearted, intelli-
gent girl as ever. She was a little more delicate in person,
more quiet and graceful in her movements; and love had
given depth of expression to her large blue eyes, a richer tone
to her sweet voice, and had mellowed down the buoyant
spirit of the girl to the softness and grace of womanhood.
Thoroughly and trustfully had she given her young affections,
and her person seemed imbued with gentleness from the fount
of love, that gushed up so purely in her heart. She knew
that she was loved in return—not as she loved, fervently, and
in silence, but with the fire of a passionate nature; with the
keen, intense feeling which mingles pain even with happi-
ness; and makes sorrow sharp as the tooth of a serpent.

Proud, fastidious, and passionate was the object of her re-
gard; his prejudices had been strengthened and his faults
matured, in the lap of luxury and indulgence. He was high-
spirited and generous to a fault, a true friend and a bitter en-
emy—one of those men who have lofty virtues and strong
counterbalancing faults. But with all his heart and soul he
loved the gentle girl to whom he was betrothed. In that he
had been thoroughly unselfish ‘and more than generous, but
not the less proud. . The prejudices of birth and station had
been instilled into his nature, till they had become a part of it;
yet he had unhesitatingly offered hand and fortune to the
daughter of a plain country farmer. } ,

In truth, his predominating pride might. be seen in this,
mingled with the powerful love which urged him to the pro-
posal. He preferred bestowing wealth and station on the ob-
ject of his choice, rather than ecei ying any worldly advan-
tage fromher. It gratified him that his love would be looked

 

 

 
 

 

 

” MALAHSKA, THE INDIAN WIFE OF THE WHITE HUNTER. 27

 

up to by its object, as the source from which all benefits
must be derived. It was a feeling of refined selfishness; he
would have been startled had any one have told him so;
and yet, a generous pride was at the bottom of all. He glo-
ried in exalting his chosen one; while his affianced wife, and
her fantily, were convinced that nothing could be more noble
than his conduct, in thus selecting a humble and compara-
tively portionless girl to share his fortune.

On the afternoon of the second day after her return home,
Sarah entered the parlor with her bonnet on and a shawl flung
over her arm, prepared for a walk. Her lover was lying on the
crimson cushions of the settee, with his fine eyes half closed,
and a book nearly falling from his listless hand.

“Come,” said Sarah, taking the volume playfully from his
hand, ‘‘I have come to persuade you toa long walk. Mother
has introduced all her friends, now you must go and see mine
—the dearest and best.”

‘Spare me,” said the young man, half-rising, and brushing
the raven hair from his forehead with a graceful motion of
the hand; ‘I will go with you anywhere, but do excuse me
these horrid introductions—I am overwhelmed with the hos-
pitality of your neighborhood.” He smiled, and attempted
to regain the book as he spoke.

‘Oh, but this is quite another kind of person; you never
saw any thing at all like her—there is something picturesque
and romantic about her. You like romance?”

‘What is she, Dutch or English? I can’t speak Dutch,
and your own sweet English is enough forme. Come, take
off that bonnet and let me read to you.”

‘‘No, no Z must visitthe wigwam, if you will not.”

“The wigwam, Miss Jones?” exclaimed the youth, starting
up, his face changing its expression, and his large black eyes
flashing on her with the glance of an eagle. “Am I to un
derstand that your friend is an Indian?”

‘© Yes, she is an Indian, but not a common one assure you.”

“She 7s an Indian. Enough, J will not go; and I can only
express my surprise at a request so extraordinary. I have no
ambition to cultivate the copper-colored race, or to find my
future wife seeking her friends in the woods.”

The finely cut lip of the speaker curved with a smile of '

haughty contempt, and his manner was disturbed and irrita-
ble, beyond any thing the young girl had ever witnessed in
him before. She turned pale at this violent burst of feeling,
and it was more than a minute before she addressed him again.

‘“This seems violence unreasonable—why should my wish
to visit a harmless, solitary fellow-being create so much oppo-
sition?” she said, at last.

‘‘ Forgive me, if I have spoken harshly, dear Sarah,” he an-
swered, striving to subdue his irritation, but spite of his effort
it blazed out again, the next instant. ‘‘It is useless to strive
against the feeling; I hate the whole race! Tf there is a ane
I abhor on earth, it is a savage—a fierce, blood-thirsty wil
beast in human form!”

There was something in the stern expression of his face,
which pained and startled the young girl who gazed on it; a
brilliancy of the eye, and an expression of the thin nostrils,
which bespoke terrible passion when once excited to the full.

“This is a strange prejudice,” she murmured, unconsci-
ously, while her eyes sunk from their gaze on his face:

‘Tris no rejudice, but a part of my nature,” he retorted,
sternly, pacing up and down the room. ‘‘‘An antipathy
rooted in the cradle, which grew stronger and deeper with my
manhood. I loved my grandfather, and from him J imbibed
this early hate. His soul loathed the very name of Indian:
When he met one of the prowling creatures in the highway,
J have seen his lips writhe, his chest heave, and his face grow
white, as if a wild beast had started up in his path. There
‘was one in our family, an affectionate, timid creature, as the
sun ever shone upon. I can remember loving her very dearly
when I was a mere child, but my grandfather recoiled at the
very sound of her name, and seemed to regard her presence
as a curse, which for some reason he was compelled to en-
dure. I could never imagine why he kept her. She was
very kind to me, and I tried to find her out after my return
from Europe, but no one could’ give me any
information about her. Save that one being, there is not a
savage, male or female, whom I should not rejoice to see ex-
tarniinated from the face of the earth. Do not, I pray you,
look so terribly shocked, my sweet girl; I acknowledge the
feeling to be a prejudice too violent for adequate foundation;
but it was grounded in my nature by one whom I respected
and loved as my own life, and it will cling to my heart as
long as there is a pulse left in it.”

‘©T have no predilection for savages as a race,” said Sarah,

 

after a few moments’ silence, gratified to find some shadow
of reason for her lover's violence; ‘‘ but you make one excep-
tion: may I not also be allowed a favorite? especially as she
is a white in education, feeling, every thing but color? You
would not have me neglect one of the kindest, best friends I
ever hadon earth, because the tint of her skin isa shade
darker than my own?”

Her voice was sweet and persuasive, a smile trembled on her
lips, and she laid a hand gently on hisarm as shespoke. He
must have been a savage indeed, had he resisted her winning
ways.

ay would have you forgive my violence and follow your
own sweet impulses,” he said, putting back the curls from her
uplifted forehead, and drawing her to his bosom; ‘‘say you
have forgiven me, dear, and then go where you will.”

These words could hardly be called a lovers’ quarrel, and
yet they parted with all the sweet feelings of reconciliation,
warm at the heart of each.

CHAPTER XIII.

By the forest grave she mournful stood,
While her soul went forth in prayer;
Her life was one long solitude,
Which she offered meekly there.

SARAH pursued the foot-path, which she had so often trod
through the-forest, with a heart that beat quicker at the sight

.of each familiar bush or forest-tree.

‘*Poor woman, she must have been very lonely,” she mur-
mured, more than once, when the golden blossoms of a spice-
bush, or-the tendrils of a vine trailing over the path, told how
seldom it had been traveled of late, and her heart impercepti-
bly became saddened by the thoughts of her friend.

To her disappointment, she found the wigwam empty, but
a path was beaten along the edge of the woods, leading tow-
ard the Pond, which she had never observed before. She
turned into it with a sort of indefinite expectation of meeting
her friend; and after winding through the depths of the forest
for nearly a mile, the note of a wild, plaintive song rose and
feli—a sad, sweet melody—on the still air.

A few steps onward brought the young girl to a small open
space surrounded by young saplings and flowering shrubs; tall
grass swept from a little mound which swelled up from the
center, to the margin of the inclosure, and a magnificent hem-
lock shadowed the whole space with its drooping boughs.

A sensation of awe fell upon the heart of the young girl,
for, as she gazed, the mound took the form of-a grave’ A
large rose-tree, heavy with blossoms, drooped over the head,
and the sheen of rippling waters broke through a clump of
sweet-brier, which hedged it in from the lake. ee

Sarali remembered that the Indian chief’s grave was ‘on the
very brink of the’ water, and that she had given a young rose-
tree to Malaeska years ago, which must have shot up into the
solitary bush standing before her, lavishing fragrance from
its pure white flowers over the place of the dead.

This would have been enough to convince her that she stood
by the warrior’s grave, had the place been solitary, but at the
root of the hemlock, with her arms folded on her bosom and
her calm face uplifted toward heaven, sat Malaeska. Her’lips
were slightly parted, and the song which Sarah had listened
to afar off broke from them—a sad, pleasant strain, that blend-
ed in harmony with the rippling waters and the gentle sway
of the hemlock branches overhead. ats :

Sarah remained motionless till the last note of the song died
away on the lake, then she stepped forward into the inclosure.
The Indian woman saw her and arose, while a beautiful ex-
pression of joy beamed over her face.

“The bird does not feel more joyful at the return of spring,
when snows have covered the earth all winter, than does the
poor Indian’s heart at the sight of her child again,” she said,
taking the maiden’s hand and kissing it with a graceful move-
ment of mingled respect and’ affection. “ Sit down, that I
may hear the sound of your voice once more.”

They sat down together at the foot of the hemlock. vi

“You have been lonely, my poor friend, and ill, I fear ; how
thin you have become during my absence,” said Sarah, gazing
on the changed features of her companion. Ht

“T shall be happy again now,” replied the Indian, with a
faint, sweet smile ; “you will come to see me every day.” .

“Yes, while I remain at home, but—but—I’m going back
again’soon.” , :

 
 

98 “NEW AND OLD FRIENDS.

 

“You need not tell me more in words, I can read it in the

tone of your voice,.in the light of that modest eye—in the color

. coming and going.on those cheeks; another is coming to take
you from home,” said the Indian, witha playfulsmile. “ Did
you think the lone woman could not read the signs of love—
that ere has never loved herself?”

“ q

“Do not look so wild, but tell me of yourself. Are you to
be married so very soon ?”

“Tn four days.”

“Then where will your home be?”

‘In Manhattan.”

.There were a few moments of silence. Sarah sat gazing on
the turf, with the warm blood mantling to her cheek, ashamed
and yet eager to converse more fully on the subject. which
flooded her young heart with supreme content. The Indian
continued motionless, lost in a train of sad thoughts conjured
up by the last word uttered; at length she laid her hand on
that of hercompanion, and spoke; her voice was sad, and tears
stood in her eyes.

“Tn a few days you go from me again—oh, it is very weari-

_ some to be always alone; the heart pines for something to
love. J have been petting a little wren that has built his nest
under the eaves of my wigwam, since you went away; it was
company for me, and will be again. Do not look so p tiful,
but tell me who is he that calls the red blood to your cl.eek?
Does he love you? Is he good, brave ?”

“‘ He says that he loves me,” replied the young girl, blushing
more deeply.

“ And you ?”

“Tf to think of one from morning to night, be love—to
know that he is haunting your beautiful day-dreams, wander-
ing with you through the lovely places which fancy is contin-
ually presenting to one in solitude, filling up each space and
thought of your life, and yet in no way diminishing the affec-
tion which the heart bears to others, but increasing it rather—
if to be made happy with the slightest trait of noble feeling,
proud in his virtues, and yet quick-sighted and doubly sensi-
tive to all his faults, clinging to him in spite of those faults—
if this be love, then I do love with the whole strength of my
being. My heart is full of tranquillity, and,like that white
rose which lies motionless in the sunshine burdened with the
wealth of its own sweetness it unfolds itself day by day to a
more pure and subdued state of enjoyment. This fecliug may
not be the love which men talk so freely of, but it cannot
change—never—not even in death, unless William Danforth
should prove utterly unworthy !”

“William Danforth! Did I hear you aright? Is William
Danforth the name of your affianced husband ?” inquired the
Indian, in a voice of overwhelming surprise, starting up with
sudden im etuosity and then slowly sinking back to her seat
again. ‘“ Tell me,” she added, faintly, and yet in a tone that
thrilled to the heart, ‘“‘has this boy—this young gentleman,
I mean—come of late from across the big waters?

“ He came from Europe a year since,” was the reply.

“A year, a whole year!” murmured the Indian, clasping
her hands over her eyes with sudden energy. Her head sunk
forward upon her knees, and her whole frame shivered with
a rush of strong feeling, which was perfectly unaccountable
to the almost terrified girl who ea upon her. “ Father of
Heaven, I thank thee! my eyes shall behold him once more.
Oh, God, make me grateful!’ These words, uttered so fer-
vently, were muffled by the locked hands of the Indian wo-
man, and Sarah could only distinguish that she was strongly
excited by the mention of her lover’s name.

“ Have you ever known Mr. Danforth ?” she inquired, when
the agitation of the strange woman had a little subsided.
The Indian did not answer, but raising her head, and brush-
ing the tears from her eyes, she looked in the maiden’s face
with an expression of pathetic tenderness that touched her to
the heart.

“ And you are to be Ais wife? You, my bird of birds.”

She fell upon the young girl’s neck as she spoke, and wept
like an infant; then, as if conscious of betraying too deep
emotion, she lifted her head, and tried in compose herself;
while Sarah sat gazing on her, agitated, bewildered, and ut-
terly at a loss to account for this sudden outbreak of feeling,
in one habitually so subdued and calm to her demeanor. Af-
ter sitting musingly and in silence several moments, the In-
dian again lifted her eyes; they were full of sorrowful mean-

ing, yet there was an eager look about them which showed a |

degree of excitement yet unsubdued.
“Dead—are they both dead? his grandparents, I mean ?”
she said, earnestly. ;

 

“ Yes, they are both dead.”

“ And he—the young man—where is he now ?”

“ T left him at my father’s house, not three hours since,”

“Come, let us go.”

The two arose, passed through the inclosure, and threaded
the path toward the wigwam slowly and in silence.

The afternoon shadows were gathering over the forest, and
being anxious to reach home before dark, Sarah refused to
enter the wigwam when they reached it. The Indian went
in fora moment, and returned with a slip,of birch bark, on
which a few words were lightly traced in pencil,

‘* Give this to the young man,” she said, placing the bark in
Sarah’s hand; “and now good-night—good-night.”

Sarah took the bark and turned with a hurried step to the
forest track. She felt agitated, and as if something painful
were about to happen. With a curiosity aroused by the In-
dian’s strange manner, she examined the writing on the slip
of bark in her hand; it was only a request that William Dan-
forth would meet the writer at a place appointed, on the bank
of the Catskill Creek, that evening. The scroll was signed,
“ Malaeska.”

Malaeska! It was singular, but Sarah Jones had never
learned the Indian’s name before.

CHAPTER XIV. $

Tue point of land, which we have described in the early
part of this story, as hedging in the outlet of Catskill Creek,
gently ascends from the juncture of the two streams and rolls
upward into a broad and beautiful hill, which again sweeps
off toward the mountains and down the margin of the Hud-
son in a vast plain, at the present day cut up into highly cul-
tivated farms, and diversified by little eminences, groves, and
one Jarge tract of swamp-land. Along the southern margin
of the creek the hill forms a lofty and picturesque bank, in
some places dropping to the water in a sheer descent of forty
or fifty feet, and in others, sloping down in a more gradual
but still abrupt fall, broken into little ravines and thickly cov-
ered with a fine growth of young timber.

A foot-path winds up from the stone dwelling, which we
have already described, along the upper verge of this bank to
the level of the plain, terminating in a singular projection of
earth which shoots out from the face of the bank some feet
over the stream, taking the form of a huge serpent’s head.
This projection commands a fine view of the village, and is
known to the inhabitants by the title of “ Hoppy Nose,” from
a tradition attached to it. The foot-path, which terminates
at this. point, receives a melancholy interest from the con-
stant presence of a singular being who has trod it regularly
for years. Hour after hour, and day after day, through sun-
shine and storm, he is to be seen winding among the trees, or
moving with a slow monotonous walk along this track, where
it verges into the rich sward. Speechless he has been for
many years, not from inability, but from a settled, unbroken
habit of silence. He is perfectly gentle and inoffensive, and
from his quiet bearing a slight observer might mistake him
for a meditative philosopher, rather than a man slightly and
harmlessly insane, as a peculiar expression in his clear blue
eyes and his resolute silence must surely proclaim him to be.

But we are describing subsequent things, rather than the
scenery as it existed at the time of our story. Then, the hill-
side and all the broad plain was a forest of heavy timbered:
land, but the bank of the creek was much in its present con-
dition. The undergrowth throve a little more luxuriantly,.
and the “ Hoppy Nose” shot out from it covered with a thick
coating of grass, but shrubless with the exception of two or
three saplings and a few clumps of wild-flowers. ,

As the moon arose on the night after Sarah Jones’ interview

with the Indian woman, that singular being stood upon the:

‘‘ Hoppy Nose,” waiting the appearance of young Danforth..
More than once she went out to the extreme verge of the pro-
jection, looked eagerly up and down the stream, then back
into the shadow again, with folded arms, continued her watch
as before.

At length a slight sound came from the opposite side;
she sprung forward, and supporting herself by a sapling, bent
over the stream, with one foot just eae the ape of the
projection, her lip slightly parted, and her left hand holding
back the hair from her temples, eager to ascertain the nature
of the sound. The sapling bent and almost snapped beneath:

 

 

 

 
4
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fe

 

  

 

MALAESKA, THE INDIAN WIFE OF THE WHITE HUNTER. 29

 

her hold, but she remained motionless, her eyes shining in the
moonlight with a strange, uncertain luster and keenly fixed
on the place whence the sound proceeded.

A canoe cut out into’ the river, and made toward the spot
where she was standing.

“Tt is he!” broke from: her parted lips, as the moonlight
fell on the clear forehead and graceful form of a young man
who stood upright in the little shallop, and drawing a deep
breath, she settled back, folded her arms, and waited his ap-
proach. f
' The sapling had scarcely swayed back to its position, when
the youth curved his canoe round to a hollow in the bank, and

climbing along the ascent, he drew himself up the steep side _

of the ‘‘ Hoppy Nose” by the. brushwood, and sprung to the
Indian woman’s side.

“Malaeska,” he said, extending his hand with a manner and
voice of kindly recognition; “my good, kind nurse, believe
me, I am rejoiced to have found you again.”

Malaeska did not take his hand, but after an intense and
eager gaze into his face, flung herself on his bosom, sobbing
aloud, murmuring soft, broken words of endearment, and
trembling all over with a rush of unconquerable tenderness.

The youth started back, and a frown gathered on his
haughty forehead. His prejudices were offended, and he
strove to put her from his bosom; even gratitude for all her
goodness could not conquer the disgust with which he recoil-
ed from the embrace of a savage.

‘*Malaeska,” he said, almost sternly, attempting to unclasp
her arms from his neck, “‘ you forget—I am no longer a boy
—be composed, and say what I can do for you ?”

But she clung to him the more passionately, and answered
with an appeal that thrilled to his very heart.

“Put not your mother away—she has waited long—my son !
my son!”

The youth did not comprehend the whole meaning of her
words. They were more energetic and full of pathos than he
had ever witnessed before ; but she had been his nurse, and
he had been long absent from her, and the strength of her at-
tachment made him for a moment forgetful of her race. He
was affected almost to tears.

“ Malaeska,” he said, kindly, “I did not know till now how
much you loved me. Yet it is not strange—I can remember
when you were almost a mother to me.”

“ Almost!” she exclaimed, throwing back her head till the
moonlight revealed her face. ‘Almost! William Danforth,
as surely as there isa God to. witness my words, you are my
own son!”

The youth started as if a dagger had been thrust to his heart.
He forced the agitated woman from his bosom, and, bending
forward, gazed sternly into her eyes.

“Woman, are you mad? Dare you assert this to me?”

He grasped her arm almost fiercely, and seemed as if tempt-
ed to offer some violence, for the insult her words had con-
veyed ; but she lifted her eyes to his with a look of tenderness,
in painful contrast with his almost insane gaze.

““Mad, my son?” she said, in a voice that thrilled with a
sweet and broken earnestness on the still air. “It was a
blessed madness—the madness of two warm young hearts that
forgot everything in the sweet impulse with which they clung
together ; it was madness which led your father to take the
wild Indian girl to his bosom, when in the bloom of early girl-
hood. Mad! oh, I could go mad with very tenderness, when
I think of the time when your little form was first placed in
my arms; when my heart ached with love to feel your little
hand upon my bosom, and your low murmur fill my ear. Ob,
it was a sweet madness. I would die to know it again.”

The youth had gradually relaxed his hold on her arm, and
stood looking upon her as one in a dream, his arms dropping
helplessly as if they had been suddenly paralyzed; but when
she again drew toward him, he was aroused to frenzy.

“Great God!” he almost shrieked, dashing his hand against
his forehead. ‘‘ No, no! it can not—I, an Indian? a half-
blood? the grandson of my father’s murderer ? Woman, speak
the truth; word for word, give me the accursed history of my
disgrace. If Iam your son, give me proof—proof, I say!”

hen the poor woman saw the furious passion she had
raised, she sunk back in silent terror, and it was several min-
utes before she could answer his wild appeal. When she did
speak it was gaspingly and in terror. She told him all—of
his birth; his father’s death; of her voyage to Manhattan ; and
of the cruel promise that had been wrung from her, to conceal
the relationship between herself and her child. She spoke of
her solitary life in the wigwam, of the yearning power which
urged her mother’s heart to claim the love of her only child,

 

when that child appeared in the neighborhood. She asked
not to be acknowledged as his parent, but only to live with
him, even as a bond-servant, if he willed it. ...

He stood perfectly still, with his pale face bent to hers, list-
ening to her quick gasping speech till she had done. Then
she could see that his face was convulsed in the moonlight,
and that he trembled and grasped a sapling which stood near
for support. .His voice was that of one utterly overwhelmed
and broken-hearted. oy

“ Malaeska,” he said, “ unsay all this if you. would not see
me die at your feet. Iam young and a world.of happiness
was before me. I was about to be married to one so gentle—
so pure—I, an Indian—was about to give my stained hand to
a lovely being of untainted blood. I, who was so, proud of
lifting her to my lofty station. Oh, Malaeska!” he exclaimed,
vehemently grasping her hand with a clutch of iron, “say that
this was a story—a sad, pitiless story got up-to punish my
pride: say but this, and I will give you all I have on, earth—
every farthing. I will love you better than a thousand sons.
His frame shook with agitation, and he gazed upon her as one
pleading for his life.

When the wretched mether saw the hopeless misery which
she had heaped upon her. proud and sensitive child, she
would have laid down her life could she have unsaid the; tale
which wrought such agony, without bringing.a stain of false-
hood on her soul. . i

But words are fearful weapons, never to be checked. when
once put in motion. Like barbed arrows they enter the heart,
and cannot be withdrawn again, even by the hand. that has
shot them. The poor Indian mother could not recall hers, but
she tried to soothe the proud feelings which had been so terri-
bly wounded.

“Why should my son scorn the race of his mother? The
blood which she gave him from her heart was that of a brave
and kingly line, warriors and chieftains, all—”

The youth interrupted her with a low, bitter laugh. The

deep. prejudices which had been instilled into his nature—
pride, despair, every feeling which urges to madness and evil
—were a fire in his heart. .
_ “Sol have a patent of nobility to gild my sable birthright,
an ancestral line of dusky chiefs to. boast of. I should have
known this, when I offered my hand to that lovely girl. She
little knew the dignity which awaited her union. Father of
heaven, my heart will break—I am going mad !” ’

He looked wildly around as he spoke, and his eyes settled
on the dark waters, flowing so tranquilly afew feet beneath
him. Instantly he became calm, as one who had found an
unexpected resource in his affliction. His face was perfectly
colorless and gleamed like marble as he turned to his mother,
who stood in a posture of deep humility and supplication a
few paces off, for she dared not approach him again either
with words of comfort or tenderness. All the sweet hopes
which had of late been so warm in her heart, were utterly
crushed. She was a heart-broken, wretched woman, without
& hope on this side the grave. The young man drew close to
her, and taking both her hands, looked sorrowfully into her
face. His voice was tranquil and deep-toned, but a slight
husky sound gave an unnatural solemnity to his words.

“ Malaeska,” he said, raising her hands toward heaven,
“swear to me by the God whom we both worship, that you
have told me nothing but the truth; I would have no doubt.”

There was something sublime in his position, and in the
solemn calmness which had settled upon him. The poor wo-
man had been weeping, but the tears were checked in her eyes,
and her pale lips ceased their quivering motion and became
firm, as she looked up to the white face bending over her.

“ As I hope to meet you, my son, before that God, I have
spoken nothing but the truth.” !

“ Malaeska !’

“Will you not call me mother?” said the meek woman,
with touching pathos. ‘‘I know Iam an Indian, but your
father loved me.” ;

‘“Mother? Yes, God forbid that I should refuse to call you
mother; I am afraid that I have often been harsh to you, but
I did not know your claim on my love. Even now, I have
been unkind.”

“No, no, my son.”

‘“‘T remember you were always meek and forgiving—you
mae me now, my poor mother?”

alaeska could not speak, but she sunk to her son’s feet,
and covered his hand with tears and kisses.

“There is one who will feel this more deeply than
either of us. You will comfort her, Mala—mother, will you.
not?

 
30 NEW AND OLD FRIENDS.

Malaeska rose slowly up, and looked into her son’s face:
She was terrified by bis child-like gentleness; her breath came
painfully. She knew not why it was, but a shudder ran
through her frame, and her heart eer heavy, as if some ter-
rible catastrophe were about to happen. he young man
stepped a pace nearer the bank, and stood motionless, gazing
down into the water. Malaeska drew close to him, and laid
her hand on his arm.

‘* Myson, why do you stand thus? Why gaze.so fearfully
upon the water?”

He did not answer, but drew her to his bosom, and pressed
his lips down upon her forehead. Tears sprung afresh to the
mother’s eyes, and her heart thrilled with an exquisite sensa-
tion, whieh was almost pain. It was the first time he had
kissed her since his childhood. She trembled with mingled
awe and tenderness as he released her from his embrace, and
put her gently from the brink of the projection. The action
had placed her back toward him. She turned—saw him clasp
his hands high over his head, and spring into the air. There
was a plunge, the deep, rushing sound of waters flowing back
to their place, and:then a shriek, sharp and full of terrible ag-
ony rung over the stream like the death-cry of a human being.

‘we cry broke from the wretched mother, as she tore off
her outer garments and plunged after the self-murderer.
Twice the moonlight fell upon her pallid face and her long
hair, as it streamed out on the water. The third time another
marble face rose to the surface, and with almost superhuman
strength the mother bore up the lifeless body of her son with
one arm, and with the other struggled to the shore. ‘She car-
ried him up the steep bank where, at another time, no wo-
man could have clambered even without incumbrance, and
laid him on the grass./' She tore open his vest, and laid her
hand upon the heart. It wascold and pulseless. She chafed
his palms,’ rubbed his marble forehead, and stretching herself
on his body, tried to breathe life into his marble lips from
her own cold heart. It was in vain. When convinced of
this, she ceased all exertion, her! face fell forward to the earth,
and, with alow, sobbing breath, she lay motionless by the
dead. The a oe hearing that fearful shriel yushed down
to the stream and reached the ‘‘ Hoppy Nose)” to find two
human beings lying upon it.

The next morning found a sorrowful household in Arthur

Jones! dwelling. Inthe ‘‘ out-room” lay the body of William
Danforth, shrouded in his winding-sheet.

retained the volume and gloss of youth, but now it fell. back
from her hollow temples profusely as ever, but perfectly gray.

)

‘With her heavy |
eyes fixed on the marble features of her son, sat the wretched
Indian mother. Until the evening before, her dark hair bad |

 

The frost of grief had changed it in @ single night. Her fea-
tures were sunken, and she sat by the dead, motionless and
resigned. ‘There was nothing of stubborn grief about her.
She answered when spoken to, and was patient in her suffer-
ing; but all could see that it was but the tranquillity of a
broken heart, mild in its utter desolation. When the villa-
gers gathered for the funeral, Malaeska, in a few gentle words,
told them of her relationship to the dead, and besought them
to bury him by the side of his father.

The coffin was carried out and a solemn train followed it
through the forest. Women and children all went forth to
the burial.

When the dead body of her affianced husband was brought
home, Sarah Jones had been carried senseless to her chamber.
She was falling continually from one fainting-fit to another,
murmuring sorrowfully in her intervals of consciousness, and
dropping gently away with the sad words on her lips. Late
in the night, after her lover’s interment, she awoke to a con-
sciousness of misfortune. As the light dawned, a yearning
wish awoke in her heart to visit the grave of her betrothed.
She arose, dressed herself, and bent her way with feeble step
ae the forest. Strength returned to her as she went for-
ward.

The wigwam was desolate, and the path which led to the
grave lay with the dew yet unbroken on its turf. The early
sunshine was playing among the wet, heavy branches of the
hemlock, when she reached the inclosure. > sweet fragrance
was shed over the trampled. grass from the white rose-tree
which bent low beneath the weight of its pure blossoms. A
shower of damp petals lay upon the chieftain’s grave, and the
green leaves quivered in the air as it sighed through them
with a pleasant and cheering motion. But Sarah saw nothing
but a newly-made grave, and stretched upon its fresh sods the
form of a human being. A feeling of awe came over the
maiden’s heart. She moved reverently onward, feeling that
she was in the sanctuary of the dead. The form was Mala-
eska’s. One arm fell over the grave, and her long hair, in all
its mournful change of color, had been swept back from her
forehead, and lay tangled amid the rank grass. The sod on
which her head rested was sprinkled over with tiny white
blossoms. A handful lay crushed beneath her cheek, and
sent up a faint odor over the marble face. Sarah bent down
and ‘touched the forehead... It was cold and hard, but a tran-
quil sweetness was there which told that the spirit had passed
away without a struggle. Malaeska lay dead among the
graves of her household, the heart-broken victim of an unnat-
ural marriage: 8

THE END.
_ BILL B

WEW AND OLT:D FRIENDS.

Number two of this beautiful series of Popular American Romance, Historic Fiction and Tales of the Wild West,
will be issued: on Tuesday, Feb. Poth, embodying» = = ; . ; ‘ er

--MR. EDWARD 8. ELLIS’ ROMANCE — \ ~
The Trapping and Hunting-Grounds, of the North-West!

VIZ.: E

IDDON, TRAPPE
an _ SN \ 4

 

bee he

    

 

" WN _ t : a
“4 dinner on beaver-tails f exclaimed Nat, in astonishment ; “that must be a fine dinner, I swow.” “ And when you gets @ bite of it, youl
Jind it so, Treckons.”” “ Perhaps so,” replied Nat, doubtingly.

One of the most captivating Tales.of theWildérness ever published, Delineating with much particularity the daily
life of the fur-trapper—who, surrounded by the treacherous Blackfeet, yet pursued his enticing calling, which was to him
both a matter of sport and a means of livelihood—the f mE

_Brave, Heroic, Sagacious, Whimsical Bill

becomes the hero of adventures that are 4 source of ceaseless delight and wonder to every reader.” A Rovgh Diamond,
the trapper is a marked character. Not modeled after the great Pathfinder, he is yet, like that forest noble, a

Weritable Genius of the Pathless Wilds!

ready for every possible emergency, appalled by no peril, sleepless, vigilant, tireless, and, withal, a man with a heart as

gentle as that of a girl, loving, tender and devoted, with a sense of humor and fan that no situation can repress; and
when he champions ‘

THE BEAUTIFUL CAPTIVE OF THE BLACKFOOT CAMP!

and with his chivalric companion, the Young Hunter, “takes the responsibility” of outwitting the implacable savages

he enters upon a race of hazard, trial and skill which proves his wonderful powers, and gives the story an interest so
personal and exciting that it will be

READ AND READ AGAIN BY YOUNG AND OLD.

For sale by all newsdealers; or sent, post-paid, to any address, on receipt of Ten Cents.

BEADLE AND ADAMS, Publishers, 98 William St.. N.Y. .
A Celebrated Character in American Fiction,

Is THE INIMITABLY LUDICROUS AND INQUISITIVE

SCOUT, HUNTER AND EXPLORER,

Nathan Todd, from ‘‘’Way daown East,” whose exploits, in the country of the implacable Sioux, in connection with

‘The Noted Old Indian-Fighter, Bill Biddon,

WILL BE GIVEN IN NUMBER FOUR OF

NEW AND OL.D FRIENDS,

TO ISSUE FRIDAY, APRIL 25TH, NAMELY:

OR,

E SIOUX CAPTIVE.

THE FATE OF TH
\fooe A SEQUEL TO.“ BILL BIDDON, TRAPPER.”

 

BY EDWARD S. ELLIS,

AUTHOR OF “ SETH JONES,” “ BILL BIDDON, TRAPPER,” ETC., ETC.

 

a at a

In this most-amusing volume the career of the whimsical Yankee, who played such a singular part in “ Bill Biddon,” is
4rawn out, and Nat becomes.a hero in spite of himself, in a wild search for a lost girl. He is not alone, however, for with
him are companions of the western type who give to the story an intensely interesting feature. The wild life of the Far West,
indeed, in this work, is so vividly depicted that, in this respect, the novel is well worthy of comparison with Cooper’s master-
pieces, “ Pathfinder ” and “ Deer Slayer.” _ Its introduction, therefore, to this popular form, will be especially welcome to all
who delight in tales’of the Forest, Trail, Hunter’s Camp and Indian Fighting, wherein ‘the whimsical Nat plays a distinguished
role, including even that of lover. ; ;

For sale by all newsdealers ; or sent, post-paid, to any address, on receipt of price—Ten Cents.

BEADLE AND ADAMS, Publishers, 98 William St., N. Y.