or men!"

"Ah! the secret is out," said the trapper to Middleton, who was an
attentive, because a deeply interested, observer of what was passing.
"This good-looking young Indian is scouting on the track of the
Siouxes--you may see it by his arrow-heads, and his paint; ay, and by
his eye, too; for a Red-skin lets his natur' follow the business he is
on, be it for peace, or be it for war,--quiet, Hector, quiet. Have
you never scented a Pawnee afore, pup?--keep down, dog--keep down--my
brother is right. The Siouxes are thieves. Men of all colours and
nations say it of them, and say it truly. But the people from the rising
sun are not Siouxes, and they wish to visit the lodges of the Loups."

"The head of my brother is white," returned the Pawnee, throwing one
of those glances at the trapper, which were so remarkably expressive of
distrust, intelligence, and pride, and then pointing, as he continued,
towards the eastern horizon, "and his eyes have looked on many
things--can he tell me the name of what he sees yonder--is it a
buffaloe?"

"It looks more like a cloud, peeping above the skirt of the plain with
the sunshine lighting its edges. It is the smoke of the heavens."

"It is a hill of the earth, and on its top are the lodges of Pale-faces!
Let the women of my brother wash their feet among the people of their
own colour."

"The eyes of a Pawnee are good, if he can see a white-skin so far."

The Indian turned slowly towards the speaker, and after a pause of a
moment he sternly demanded--

"Can my brother hunt?"

"Alas! I claim to be no better than a miserable trapper!"

"When the plain is covered with the buffaloes, can he see them?"

"No doubt, no doubt--it is far easier to see than to take a scampering
bull."

"And when the birds are flying from the cold, and the clouds are black
with their feathers, can he see them too?"

"Ay, ay, it is not hard to find a duck, or a goose, when millions are
darkening the heavens."

"When the snow falls, and covers the lodges of the Long-knives, can the
stranger see flakes in the air?"

"My eyes are none of the best now," returned the old man a little
resentfully, "but the time has been when I had a name for my sight!"

"The Red-skins find the Big-knives as easily as the strangers see the
buffaloe, or the travelling birds, or the falling snow. Your warriors
think the Master of Life has made the whole earth white. They are
mistaken. They are pale, and it is their own