understand them. Some He placed among the snows, with their cousin
the bear. Some he placed near the setting sun, on the road to the happy
hunting-grounds. Some on the lands around the great fresh waters; but to
his greatest, and most beloved, He gave the sands of the salt lake. Do
my brothers know the name of this favored people?"

"It was the Lenape!" exclaimed twenty eager voices, in a breath.

"It was the Lenni Lenape," returned Magua, affecting to bend his head in
reverence to their former greatness. "It was the tribes of the Lenape!
The sun rose from water that was salt, and set in water that was sweet,
and never hid himself from their eyes. But why should I, a Huron of the
woods, tell a wise people their own traditions? Why remind them of their
injuries; their ancient greatness; their deeds; their glory; their
happiness,--their losses; their defeats; their misery? Is there not one
among them who has seen it all, and who knows it to be true? I have
done. My tongue is still, for my heart is of lead. I listen."

As the voice of the speaker suddenly ceased, every face and all eyes
turned, by a common movement, towards the venerable Tamenund. From the
moment that he took his seat, until the present instant, the lips of the
patriarch had not severed, and scarcely a sign of life had escaped him.
He sat bent in feebleness, and apparently unconscious of the presence he
was in, during the whole of that opening scene, in which the skill of
the scout had been so clearly established. At the nicely graduated sound
of Magua's voice, however, he betrayed some evidence of consciousness,
and once or twice he even raised his head, as if to listen. But when the
crafty Huron spoke of his nation by name, the eyelids of the old man
raised themselves, and he looked out upon the multitude with that sort
of dull unmeaning expression which might be supposed to belong to the
countenance of a spectre. Then he made an effort to rise, and being
upheld by his supporters, he gained his feet, in a posture commanding by
its dignity, while he tottered with weakness.

"Who calls upon the children of the Lenape!" he said, in a deep,
guttural voice, that was rendered awfully audible by the breathless
silence of the multitude: "who speaks of things gone! Does not the egg
become a worm--the worm a fly, and perish? Why tell the Delawares of
good that is past? Better thank the Manitou for that which remains."

"It is a Wyandot," said Magua, stepping ni