Thok, and her eyes were dry.

"Weep for Balder," they said.

"With dry eyes only will I weep for Balder," she answered. "Dead or
alive, he never gave me gladness. Let him stay in Helheim."

When she had spoken these words a terrible laugh broke from her lips,
and the messengers looked at each other with pallid faces, for they knew
it was the voice of Loki.

Balder never came back to Asgard, and the shadows deepened over all
things, for the night of death was fast coming on.

CHAPTER XVI

THE STAR AND THE LILY

An old chieftain sat in his wigwam, quietly smoking his favourite pipe,
when a crowd of Indian boys and girls suddenly entered, and, with
numerous offerings of tobacco, begged him to tell them a story, and he
did so.

There was once a time when this world was filled with happy people; when
all the nations were as one, and the crimson tide of war had not begun
to roll. Plenty of game was in the forest and on the plains. None were
in want, for a full supply was at hand. Sickness was unknown. The beasts
of the field were tame; they came and went at the bidding of man. One
unending spring gave no place for winter--for its cold blasts or its
unhealthy chills. Every tree and bush yielded fruit. Flowers carpeted
the earth. The air was laden with their fragrance, and redolent with the
songs of wedded warblers that flew from branch to branch, fearing none,
for there were none to harm them. There were birds then of more
beautiful song and plumage than now. It was at such a time, when earth
was a paradise and man worthily its possessor, that the Indians were
lone inhabitants of the American wilderness. They numbered millions;
and, living as nature designed them to live, enjoyed its many blessings.
Instead of amusements in close rooms, the sport of the field was theirs.
At night they met on the wide green beneath the heavenly worlds--the
_ah-nung-o-kah_. They watched the stars; they loved to gaze at them,
for they believed them to be the residences of the good, who had been
taken home by the Great Spirit.

One night they saw one star that shone brighter than all others. Its
location was far away in the south, near a mountain peak. For many
nights it was seen, till at length it was doubted by many that the star
was as far distant in the southern skies as it seemed to be. This doubt
led to an examination, which proved the star to be only a short distance
away, and near the tops of some trees. A number of war