self a wondrous influence?"

"Let it not displease thee that I do. I have become in love with the
pains of human life, and delighted with the anxieties which cling to it,
as moist snow clings to a pine in the warm spring."

"Becoming a mortal being thou must die."

"I shall first have lived."

"Thy spirit--"

"Disincumbered of its earthly load, will return to its former starry
mansion."

"Once more I ask, dost thou prefer to remain on earth? Rough and noisy
though I be, yet will I not exert force to compel thee back to thine own
region."

"I would remain. In my cabin is a Teton warrior--him I love; there are
ten beautiful children at his side--the Spirit of Snow fed them with her
own milk--the Teton warrior is their father. Thou canst not, passionless
as thou art, know my feelings; but, believe me, that to part me from
them is to banish all peace and joy from my soul, and to drive me into a
depth of affliction, which will last till time shall be no more. Nor
deem that aught save death can weaken the force of those affections
which are now kindled in my bosom."

"I see, I see; and, but that stern pride forbids it, I, too, would,
throw off the state of a ruler of tempests and wintry winds, to become
the master of a cabin in one of the green vales of the earth, to gather
around me children like thine, and to feel the hopes and fears, which
have rendered thee so unlike the being thou wast. But we shall meet
again. When thou wert invested with the attributes of mortality, death
was also appointed to thee--a few years, and thou wilt quit the house of
clay, again to rove free and unconfined among the glittering stars, and
through the endless realms of space."

With these words, the Spirit of Storms took his departure from the land
of the Tetons, and none ever saw him more. Released from his presence,
joy again took possession of the bosom of the beautiful wife of the
Teton, and the traces of tears were soon removed from her fair cheek.
His assurance had quieted her soul, and fear was no longer an inhabitant
of her bosom. She no longer sought the gloomy privacy of the cabin at
the approach of night, but joined the dance of maidens, herself the most
sportive of them all. Every season added a little stranger to the
laughing and merry groupe, till twenty and seven sons and daughters
were in the cabin of the Teton Swift Foot. Old age came over the
husband, but not the wife. When his knees had grown feeble, and his
voice