ld ever cause the thrones of the world to lean
and listen, or who would find in the Emperor of all the Russias the
heart of a brother.

"Abe," said Aunt Indiana, "the Tunker here has been speakin' well of
you, though you don't deserve it. He just says as how you are goin' to
be somebody, and make somethin' in the world. I hope you will, though
you're a shaky tree to hang hopes on. I ain't got nothin' ag'in ye. He
says that you'll become a leader among men. What do you think o' that,
Abe? Don't stand there gawkin'. Come in and sit down."

"It helps one to have some one believe in him," said the tall boy. "One
tries to fulfill the good prophecies made about him. I wish I was
good.--Thank ye, elder, for your good opinion. I wonder if I will ever
make anything? I sometimes think I will. I look over toward mother's
grave there, and think I will; but you can't tell. Crawford the
schoolmaster he thinks good of me, but the other Crawford--Josiah--he's
ag'in me. But if we do right, we'll all come out right."

"Yes, my boy," said Jasper, "have faith that right is might. This is
what the Voice and the Being within tells me to preach and to teach. Let
us have faith that right is might, and do our duty, and the Spirit of
God will give us a new nature, and make us new creatures, and the
rebirth of the spiritual life into the eternal kingdom."

The prairie winds breathed through the trees. A robin came and sang in
the timber.

The four sat thoughtful--the Tunker, the Indian, the pioneer woman, and
the merry, sad-faced boy. It was a commonplace scene in the Indiana
timber, and that one lonely grave is all that is left to recall such
scenes to-day--the grave of the pioneer mother.

CHAPTER X.

THE INDIAN RUNNER.

The young May moon was hanging over the Mississippi on the evening when
Jasper came to the village of the Sacs and Foxes. This royal town, the
head residence of the two tribes, and the ancient burying-ground of the
Indian race, was very beautifully situated at the junction of the Rock
River with the Mississippi. The Father of Waters, which is in many
places turbid and uninteresting, here becomes a clear and impetuous
stream, flowing over beds of rock and gravel, amid high and wooded
shores. The rapids--the water-ponies of the Indians--here come leaping
down, surging and foaming, and are checked by monumental islands. The
land rises from the river in slopes, like terraces, crowned with hills
and patriarchal tre