ring of _hiagua_ shells. It was a pretty, delicate thing, and
he was proud of it, and had shown his pride by slitting its ears and
cutting off its tail, as was the barbarous custom with many of the
Indians. He sat on the little creature now; and loaded as it was with
the double weight of himself and the heavy wooden saddle, it could
hardly keep pace with the older and stronger horses.

In the rear of all rode Cecil Grey and the Shoshone renegade who had
helped him bury the dead Bannock the evening before. Cecil's form was
as slight and graceful in its Indian garb as in days gone by, and his
face was still the handsome, sensitive face it had been eight years
before. It was stronger now, more resolute and mature, and from long
intercourse with the Indians there had come into it something grave
and Indian-like; but it only gave more of dignity to his mien. His
brown beard swept his breast, and his face was bronzed; but the lips
quivered under the beard, and the cheek flushed and paled under the
bronze.

What had he been doing in the eight years that had elapsed since he
left his New England home? Let us listen to his story in his own words
as he tells it to the Shoshone renegade by his side.

"I lived in a land far to the east, beside a great water. My people
were white like myself. I was one of an order of men whom the Great
Spirit had appointed to preach of goodness, mercy, and truth, and to
explain to the people the sayings of a mighty book which he had given
to the fathers,--a book that told how men should live in this world,
and said that a beautiful place in the next would be given those who
are good and true in this. But by and by the Great Spirit began to
whisper to me of the Indians in the wilderness who knew nothing of the
book or the hope within it, and a longing rose within me to go and
tell them; but there were ties that held me to my own people, and I
knew not what to do. Death cut those ties; and in my hour of grief
there came to me a vision of a great bridge far in the west, and of
Indians passing over it, and a voice spoke to me and bade me go and
seek the land of the bridge, for the Great Spirit had a mission for me
there; and I went forth into the wilderness. I met many tribes and
tarried with them, telling them of God. Many were evil and treated me
harshly, others were kind and listened. Some loved me and wished me to
abide always in their lodges and be one of them. But even while they
spoke the Grea