squaws, but not in the
war-path. They are best in the lodges; here we want nothing but men.
You are a man--a brave--we honor you. We think, notwithstanding, we
shall yet make you weak. It will not be easy, yet we hope to do it.
We shall try. We may not think quite so well of you, if we do it; but
we shall always call you a brave. A man is not a stone. We can all
feel, and when we have done all that is in our power, no one can do
more. It is so with Injins; we think it must be so with pale-faces.
We mean to try and see how it is."

The corporal understood very little of this harangue, though he
perfectly comprehended the preparations of the saplings, and Bough of
the Oak's allusions to _them_. He was in a cold sweat at the thought,
for resolute as he was, he foresaw sufferings that human fortitude
could hardly endure. In this state of the case, and in the frame of
mind he was in, he had recourse to an expedient of which he had often
heard, and which he thought might now be practised to some advantage.
It was to open upon the savages with abuse, and to exasperate them, by
taunts and sarcasm, to such a degree as might induce some of the weaker
members of the tribe to dispatch him on the spot. As the corporal,
with the perspective of the saplings before his eyes, manifested a good
deal of ingenuity on this occasion, we shall record some of his efforts.

"D'ye call yourselves chiefs and warriors?" he began, upon a pretty
high key. "I call ye squaws! There is not a man among ye. Dogs would
be the best name. You are poor Injins. A long time ago, the
pale-faces came here in two or three little canoes. They were but a
handful, and you were plentier than prairie wolves. Your bark could be
heard throughout the land. Well, what did this handful of pale-faces?
It drove your fathers before them, until they got all the best of the
hunting-grounds. Not an Injin of you all, now, ever get down on the
shores of the great salt lake, unless to sell brooms and baskets, and
then he goes sneaking like a wolf after a sheep. You have forgotten
how clams and oysters taste. Your fathers had as many of them as they
could eat; but not one of you ever tasted them. The pale-faces eat
them all. If an Injun asked for one, they would throw the shell at his
head, and call him a dog.

"Do you think that my chiefs would hang one of you between two such
miserable saplings as these? No! They would scorn to practice such
pitiful tor