nterrogator for a moment with a steady
and deliberating eye; then raising his finger upward, he answered with
dignity--

"The Wahcondah pours the rain from his clouds; when he speaks, he shakes
the lulls; and the fire, which scorches the trees, is the anger of his
eye; but he fashioned his children with care and thought. What he has
thus made, never alters!"

"Ay, 'tis in the reason of natur' that it should be so, Doctor,"
continued the trapper, when he had interpreted this answer to the
disappointed naturalist. "The Pawnees are a wise and a great people, and
I'll engage they abound in many a wholesome and honest tradition. The
hunters and trappers, that I sometimes see, speak of a great warrior of
your race."

"My tribe are not women. A brave is no stranger in my village."

"Ay; but he, they speak of most, is a chief far beyond the renown of
common warriors, and one that might have done credit to that once mighty
but now fallen people, the Delawares of the hills."

"Such a warrior should have a name?"

"They call him Hard-Heart, from the stoutness of his resolution; and
well is he named, if all I have heard of his deeds be true."

The stranger cast a glance, which seemed to read the guileless soul of
the old man, as he demanded--

"Has the Pale-face seen the partisan of my people?"

"Never. It is not with me now, as it used to be some forty years ago,
when warfare and bloodshed were my calling and my gifts!"

A loud shout from the reckless Paul interrupted his speech, and at the
next moment the bee-hunter appeared, leading an Indian war-horse from
the side of the thicket opposite to the one occupied by the party.

"Here is a beast for a Red-skin to straddle!" he cried, as he made the
animal go through some of its wild paces. "There's not a brigadier in
all Kentucky that can call himself master of so sleek and well-jointed
a nag! A Spanish saddle too, like a grandee of the Mexicos! and look at
the mane and tail, braided and platted down with little silver balls, as
if it were Ellen herself getting her shining hair ready for a dance, or
a husking frolic! Isn't this a real trotter, old trapper, to eat out of
the manger of a savage?"

"Softly, lad, softly. The Loups are famous for their horses, and it is
often that you see a warrior on the prairies far better mounted, than a
congress-man in the settlements. But this, indeed, is a beast that none
but a powerful chief should ride! The saddle, as you rightly thi