l infer from the plaudits of
the thousands and thousands of admiring, astonished spectators, all
clapping their hands, waving their hats and shouting: "Hurrah! hurrah!
Splendid! splendid!"

Sprigg rubbed his eyes and looked again. Just the same. He closed his
eyes; it made no difference, he could see it as plainly through his
eyelids. He opened them again. His semblance was fading into a shadow,
so was that of the pony--fading like a cloud picture at sunset. Nothing
distinctly visible, save the red moccasins, which, from the last fading
outline of the pony's back, threw a prodigious summerset, and when they
alighted upon the ground, there! in them again, Sprigg saw his
semblance. Manitous, temple, amphitheater--all had vanished--a forest of
lofty trees appearing instead, through whose glimmer of lights and
shadows the boy now saw himself, or rather his wraith running with
incredible swiftness, and glancing furtively over his shoulder at every
bound, as if death were a present fear behind him; life a distant hope
before.

But his pursuers, who and where are they? Ah! Yonder they come, and here
they are, and there they go. Sweeping swiftly onward--a bear, a wolf, a
panther and a bison bull--and his pursuers are gaining upon him at every
bound, now treading upon his very shadow.

Meanwhile, the real Sprigg is conscious of a peculiar sensation, as if
he were moving glidingly onward, borne along by invisible hands to keep
pace with, and see the wild chase to the end. The end has come. He sees
his wraith stop suddenly, poised on the very brink of a frightful
precipice, those terrible shapes behind; a yawning, mist-hid gulf
before. A moment, that semblance of himself stands reeling on the dizzy
verge, then flings away, or is flung away into the misty void! His brain
spins 'round and 'round; sight and sensation forsake him. The boy has
swooned away! Will he be warned? Let us see!

CHAPTER XVI.

The Manitou Race.

Sprigg awoke. Bolt upright, all unharmed he found himself standing in
front of the old hunting shanty; in the self-same sun-spot where he had
stood when his father and Pow-wow, all unconscious of his presence, had
passed him by. Yes, and the self-same hour, too, of the day, as he could
judge by the length of his shadow in the sunshine, which he remembered
as having been traced on the landscape at that conjuncture. Was that
yesterday, or the moment gone but now? He could not tell, so like a
dream appeare