the
golden streaks that bound the horizon promise a brighter morning. So
with Checkered Cloud, the storm and strife of the earth have ceased; the
"battle of life" is fought, and she has conquered. For she hopes to meet
the beloved of earth in the heaven of the Dahcotahs.

And who will say that our heaven will not be hers? The God of the
Dahcotahs is ours, though they, less happy than we, have not been taught
to know him. Christians! are you without blame? Have you thought of the
privations, the wants of those who once owned your country, and would
own it still but for the strong hand? Have you remembered that their
souls are dear in His sight, who suffered for them, as well as for you?
Have you given bright gold that their children might be educated and
redeemed from their slavery of soul? Checkered Cloud will die as she has
lived, a believer in the religion of the Dahcotahs. The traditions of
her tribe are written on her heart. She worships a spirit in every
forest tree, or every running stream. The features of the favored
Israelite are hers; she is perchance a daughter of their lost tribe.
When she was young, she would have listened to the missionary as he told
her of Gethsemane and Calvary. But age yields not like youth to new
impressions; the one looks to the future, the other clings to the past.
See! she has put by her pipe and is going, but she is coming oft again
to talk to me of her people, that I may tell to my friends the bravery
of the Dahcotah warrior, and the beauty of the maiden! the legends of
their rivers and sacred isles--the traditions of their rocks and hills!

If I cannot, in recounting the wild stories of this prophetess of the
forest, give her own striking words, I shall at least be faithful to the
spirit of her recitals. I shall let Indian life speak for itself; these
true pictures of its course will tell its whole simple story better than
any labored exposition of mine. Here we may see, not the red man of the
novel or the drama, but the red man as he appears to himself, and to
those who live with him. His better characteristics will be found quite
as numerous as ought to be expected under the circumstances; his faults
and his sufferings should appeal to the hearts of those who hold the
means of his salvation. No intelligent citizen of these United States
can without blame forget the aborigines of his country. Their wrongs cry
to heaven; their souls will be required of us. To view them as brutes i