ejaculation of--"Order, primates; genus,
homo; species, prairie!"

"Ay--ay--the secret is out," said the old trapper, shaking his head,
like one who congratulated himself on having mastered the mystery of
some knotty difficulty. "The lad has been in the grass for a cover; the
fire has come upon him in his sleep, and having lost his horse, he has
been driven to save himself under that fresh hide of a buffaloe. No
bad invention, when powder and flint were wanting to kindle a ring. I
warrant me, now, this is a clever youth, and one that it would be safe
to journey with! I will speak to him kindly, for anger can at least
serve no turn of ours. My brother is welcome again," using the language,
which the other understood; "the Tetons have been smoking him, as they
would a racoon."

The young Pawnee rolled his eye over the place, as if he were examining
the terrific danger from which he had just escaped, but he disdained to
betray the smallest emotion, at its imminency. His brow contracted, as
he answered to the remark of the trapper by saying--

"A Teton is a dog. When the Pawnee war-whoop is in their ears, the whole
nation howls."

"It is true. The imps are on our trail, and I am glad to meet a warrior,
with the tomahawk in his hand, who does not love them. Will my brother
lead my children to his village? If the Siouxes follow on our path, my
young men shall help him to strike them."

The young Pawnee turned his eyes from one to another of the strangers,
in a keen scrutiny, before he saw fit to answer so important an
interrogatory. His examination of the males was short, and apparently
satisfactory. But his gaze was fastened long and admiringly, as in their
former interview, on the surpassing and unwonted beauty of a being so
fair and so unknown as Inez. Though his glance wandered, for moments,
from her countenance to the more intelligible and yet extraordinary
charms of Ellen, it did not fail to return promptly to the study of
a creature who, in the view of his unpractised eye and untutored
imagination, was formed with all that perfection, with which the
youthful poet is apt to endow the glowing images of his brain. Nothing
so fair, so ideal, so every way worthy to reward the courage and
self-devotion of a warrior, had ever before been encountered on the
prairies, and the young brave appeared to be deeply and intuitively
sensible to the influence of so rare a model of the loveliness of the
sex. Perceiving, however, th