aid in a low voice, "To the daughter of the Mohawk _brave._" The
box contained a fine tunic, soft as a lady's glove, embroidered and
fringed, and a fillet of scarlet and blue feathers, with the wings
and breast of the war-bird, as shoulder ornaments. It was a token of
reconciliation and good-will worthy of a generous heart.

The young girl pressed the gifts to her bosom and to her lips
reverentially, and the hand that brought them to her heart, as she said
in her native tongue, "Tell the Great Medicine I kiss her in my heart,
and pray that she may have peace and joy till she departs for the
spirit-land."

With joyful heart they bade adieu to the Indian lodges, and rejoiced in
being once more afloat on the bosom of the great river. To Catharine the
events of the past hours seemed like a strange bewildering dream; she
longed for the quiet repose of home; and how gladly did she listen to
that kind old man's plans for restoring her brothers and herself to the
arms of their beloved parents. How often did she say to herself, Oh that
I had wings like a dove, for then would I flee away and be at rest!--in
the shelter of that dear mother's arms whom she now pined for with a
painful yearning of the heart that might well be called home sickness.
But in spite of anxious wishes, the little party were compelled to halt
for the night some few miles above the lake. There is on the eastern
bank of the Otonabee, a pretty rounded knoll, clothed with wild
cherries, hawthorns and pine-trees, just where a creek half hidden by
alder and cranberry bushes, works its way below the shoulder of the
little eminence; this creek grows broader and becomes a little stream,
through which the hunters sometimes paddle their canoes, as a short cut
to the lower part of the lake near Crook's Rapids. To this creek old
Jacob steered his light craft, and bidding the girls collect a few dry
sticks and branches for an evening fire on the sheltered side of the
little bank, he soon lighted the pile into a cheerful blaze by the aid
of birch bark, the hunter's tinder--a sort of fungus that is found in
the rotten oak and maple-trees--and a knife and flint; he then lifted
the canoe, and having raised it on its side, by means of two small
stakes which he cut from a bush hard by, then spread down his buffalo
robe on the dry grass. "There is a tent fit for a queen to sleep under,
mes cheres filles," he said, eyeing his arrangements for their night
shelter with great sati