e Indian, tersely replied:

"They are the gifts of my white brother with the open hand, the son of
the Longbeard."

Ohquamehud appeared offended, and he asked, in a sharp tone:

"Is Quadaquina ashamed, when he speaks to a warrior, to look him in
the eyes, and did he learn his manners from the pale faces?"

The boy turned round, and gazed full at the other, and his eyes
glistened, yet it was in a low, soft tone he replied:

"Quadaquina is a child, and knows not the customs of warriors, and
children turn away their eyes from what they do not wish to see."

Ohquamehud's face darkened as he said:

"The arts of the Longbeard have blown a cloud between me and my
kindred, so that they cannot see me, and it is time my feet were
turned towards the setting sun."

"It is the fire-water that puts out the eyes of Ohquamehud, and makes
him forget what he owes to the wife of Huttamoiden," exclaimed the
boy, with suppressed passion.

"Peace, Quadaquina," said his mother. "Ohquamehud is not now the
slave of the fire-water. Go," she added, detecting, with a mother's
sagacity, the tumult in the mind of the high-spirited boy, "and return
not until thou hast tamed thine anger. Wolves dwell not in the cabin
of Peena."

The boy, with downcast eyes, and obedient to his mother, left the hut.

In explanation of this scene we may say, that, unhappily, like most
Indians, Ohquamehud was addicted to the use of spirituous liquors,
his indulgence in the fiery gratification being limited only by his
inability at all times to obtain it. Although unable to indulge his
appetite in the cabin of Esther, he occasionally procured strong
liquors in the huts of the other Indians, with whom the practice
of taking stimulants was almost universal, and sometimes in such
quantities as utterly to lose his reason. Returned on one of these
occasions, he demanded rum from Esther, and, upon her refusal to give
it, struck her a blow. This so exasperated the boy, Quadaquina, who
was present, that, with a club, he prostrated the drunken man, which,
indeed, in the condition he was in, was not difficult, and would, had
he not been restrained by Peena, have inflicted a serious injury, if
not killed him. Ohquamehud never knew that he had been struck, but
ascribed the violent pain in his head the next day to the fire-water,
and the contusion to a fall. Peena, while lamenting the excesses of
her relative, felt little or no resentment towards him; but not so
with the