vinity perceived only by
the sweet notes of birds and hum of forest life, and by a joy that
clothed his being. And now he found in his heart a sympathy for
man, and a longing to meet his old acquaintances down by the shores
of Whulge.

"He rose, and started on the downward way, smiling, and sometimes
laughing heartily at the strange croaking, moaning, cracking, and
rasping of his joints. But soon motion set the lubricating valves
at work, and the sockets grew slippery again. He marched rapidly,
hastening out of loneliness into society. The world of wood, glade,
and stream seemed to him strangely altered. Old colossal trees,
firs behind which he had hidden when on the hunt, cedars under
whose drooping shade he had lurked, were down, and lay athwart his
path, transformed into immense mossy mounds, like barrows of
giants, over which he must clamber warily, lest he sink and be half
stifled in the dust of rotten wood. Had Tamanous been widely at
work in that eventful night?--or had the spiritual change the old
man felt affected his views of the outer world?

"Traveling downward, he advanced rapidly, and just before sunset
came to the prairies where his lodge should be. Everything had
seemed to him so totally altered, that he tarried a moment in the
edge of the woods to take an observation before approaching his
home. There was a lodge, indeed, in the old spot, but a newer and
far handsomer one than he had left on the fourth evening before.

"A very decrepit old squaw, ablaze with vermilion and decked with
countless strings of hiaqua and costly beads, was seated on the
ground near the door, tending a kettle of salmon, whose blue and
fragrant steam mingled pleasantly with the golden haze of sunset.
She resembled his own squaw in countenance, as an ancient smoked
salmon is like a newly dried salmon. If she was indeed his spouse,
she was many years older than when he saw her last, and much better
dressed than the respectable lady had ever been during his miserly
days.

"He drew near quietly. The bedizened dame was crooning a chant,
very dolorous,--like this:

'My old man has gone, gone, gone,--
My old man to Tacoma has gone.
To hunt the elk, he went long ago.
When will he come down, down, down,
Down to the salmon-pot and