Does my son speak with the tongue of a
Teton?

The intelligence which lighted the eyes
of the captive betrayed how well he un-
derstood the question, but still he was far 5
too haughty to communicate his ideas
through the medium of a language that
belonged to a hostile people. Some of the
surrounding warriors explained to the old
chief that the captive was a Pawnee- 10
Loup.

pectedly relieved by the decision of the one most interested in the success of the aged chief's designs.

During the whole of the foregoing scene it would have been difficult to have traced a single distinct emotion in the lineaments of the captive. He had heard his release proclaimed, with the same indifference as the order to bind him to the stake. But now that the moment had arrived when it became necessary to make his election, he spoke in a way to prove that the fortitude which had brought him so distinguished a name, had in no degree de

'My father is very old, but he has not yet looked upon everything,' said HardHeart, in a voice so clear as to be heard by all in presence. He has never seen a buffalo change to a bat; he will never see a Pawnee become a Sioux!'

'My son opened his eyes on the "waters of the wolves," said Le Balafré, in the language of that nation, but he will shut them in the bend of the "river with a 15 serted him. troubled stream." He was born a Pawnee, but he will die a Dahcotah. Look at me. I am a sycamore that once covered many with my shadow. The leaves are fallen, and the branches begin 20 to drop. But a single sucker is springing from my roots; it is a little vine, and it winds itself about a tree that is green. I have long looked for one fit to grow by my side. Now have I found him. Le 25 tors that it was unalterable. The heart of Balafré is no longer without a son; his name will not be forgotten when he is gone. Men of the Tetons, I take this youth into my lodge.'

There was a suddenness, and yet a calmness in the manner of delivering this decision which assured most of the audi

Le Balafré, however, was yearning towards the youth, and the fondness of age was not so readily repulsed. Reproving the burst of admiration and triumph to which the boldness of the declaration and the freshened hopes of revenge had given rise, by turning his gleaming eye around the band, the veteran again addressed his adopted child as if his purpose was not to be denied.

'It is well,' he said; ' such are the words a brave should use, that the warriors may see his heart. The day has been when the voice of Le Balafré was loudest among the lodges of the Konzas. But the root of a white hair is wisdom. My child will show the Tetons that he is brave, by striking their enemies. Men of the Dahcotahs, this is my son!'

No one was bold enough to dispute a 30 right that had so often been exercised by warriors far inferior to the present speaker, and the adoption was listened to in grave and respectful silence. Le Balafré took his intended son by the arm, and 35 leading him into the very center of the circle, he stepped aside with an air of triumph, in order that the spectators might approve of his choice. Mahtoree betrayed no evidence of his intentions, but rather 40 seemed to await a moment better suited to the crafty policy of his character. The more experienced and sagacious chiefs distinctly foresaw the utter impossibility of two partisans so renowned, so hostile, 45 and who had so long been rivals in fame, as their prisoner and their native leader, existing amicably in the same tribe. Still the character of Le Balafré was so imposing, and the custom to which he had 50 tion. Then recoiling a step, he raised resorted so sacred, that none dared to lift a voice in opposition to the measure. They watched the result with increasing interest, but with a coldness of demeanor that concealed the nature of their in- 55 quietude. From this state of embarrassment and as it might readily have proved of disorganization, the tribe was unex

The Pawnee hesitated a moment, and then stepping in front of the chief, he took his hard and wrinkled hand, and laid it with reverence on his head, as if to acknowledge the extent of his obliga

his person to its greatest elevation, and looked upon the hostile band by whom he was environed, with an air of loftiness and disdain, as he spoke aloud in the language of the Siouxes:

Hard-Heart has looked at himself within and without. He has thought of all he has done in the hunts and in the

Do

wars. Everywhere he is the same.
There is no change. He is in all things a
Pawnee. He has struck so many Tetons
that he could never eat in their lodges.
His arrows would fly backwards; the point
of his lance would be on the wrong end;
their friends would weep at every whoop
he gave; their enemies would laugh.
the Tetons know a Loup? Let them look
at him again. His head is painted; his 10 lake beyond the mountains?'
arm is flesh; his heart is rock. When the
Tetons see the sun come from the Rocky
Mountains, and move toward the land of
the pale-faces, the mind of Hard-Heart
will soften, and his spirit will become 15
Sioux. Until that day he will live and
die a Pawnee.'

The Wahcondah made me like these you see waiting for a Dahcotah judg ment; but fair and foul has colored me darker than the skin of a fox. What of 5 that! though the bark is ragged and riven, the heart of the tree is sound.'

'My brother is a Big-knife! Let him turn his face towards the setting sun, and open his eyes. Does he see the Salt

A yell of delight, in which admiration and ferocity were strangely mingled, interrupted the speaker, and but too clearly 20 announced the character of his fate. The captive awaited a moment for the commotion to subside, and then turning again. to Le Balafré, he continued, in tones conciliating and kind, as if he felt the pro- 25 priety of softening his refusal, in a manner not to wound the pride of one, who would so gladly be his benefactor.

'Let my father lean heavier on the fawn of the Dahcotahs,' he said: she 30 is weak now, but as her lodge fills with young, she will be stronger. See,' he added, directing the eyes of the other to the earnest countenance of the attentive trapper; Hard-Heart is not without 35 a gray-head to show him the path to the blessed prairies. If he ever has another father, it shall be that just warrior.'

Le Balafré turned away in disappointment from the youth, and approached the 40 stranger who had thus anticipated his design. The examination between these two aged men was long, mutual, and curious. It was not easy to detect the real character of the trapper, through the mask 45 which the hardships of so many years had laid upon his features, especially when aided by his wild and peculiar attire. Some moments elapsed before the Teton spoke, and then it was in doubt whether 50 he addressed one like himself, or some wanderer of that race who, he had heard, were spreading themselves like hungry locusts throughout the land.

'The head of my brother is very white,' he said; but the eye of Le Balafré is no longer like the eagle's. Of what color is his skin?'

55

'The time has been, Teton, when few could see the white on an eagle's head further than I; but the glare of fourscore and seven winters has dimmed my eyes, and but little can I boast of sight in my latter days. Does the Sioux think a pale-face is a god, that he can look through the hills!'

Then let my brother look at me. I am nigh him, and he can see that I am a foolish red-man. Why cannot his people see everything, since they crave all?'

'I understand you, chief, nor will I gainsay the justice of your words, seeing that they are too much founded in truth. But though born of the race you love so little, my worst enemy, not even a lying Mingo, would dare to say that I ever laid hands on the goods of another, except such as were taken in manful warfare; or that I ever coveted more ground than the Lord has intended each man to fill.'

‘And yet my brother has come among the red-skins to find a son?'

The trapper laid a finger on the naked shoulder of Le Balafré, and looked into his scarred countenance with a wistful and confidential expression, as he answered,

'Aye; but it was only that I might do good to the boy. If you think, Dahcotah, that I adopted the youth in order to prop my age, you do as much injustice to my good-will as you seem to know little of the merciless intentions of your own people. I have made him my son, that he may know that one is left behind him. Peace, Hector, peace! Is this decent, pup, when gray heads are counseling together, to break in upon their discourse with the whinings of a hound! The dog is old, Teton; and though well taught in respect to behavior, he is getting, like ourselves, I fancy, something forgetful of the fashions of his youth.'

Further discourse, between these veterans, was interrupted by a discordant yell, which burst at that moment from the lips

of the chief, bounded forward at the signal like a bloodhound loosened from the leash. Forcing his way into the center of the hags, who were already proceeding 5 from abuse to violence, he reproved their impatience, and bade them wait until a warrior had begun to torment, and then they should see their victim shed tears like

The effect of this outbreaking was inevitable. Le Balafré turned away disappointed, and hid himself in the crowd; while the trapper, whose honest features 40 claimed,— were working with inward emotion, pressed nigher to his young friend, as those who are linked to the criminal by ties so strong as to brave the opinions of men, are often seen to stand about the 45 place of execution to support his dying moments. The excitement soon spread among the inferior warriors, though the chiefs still forbore to make the signal which committed the victim to their 50 mercy. Mahtoree, who had awaited such a movement among his fellows, with the wary design of concealing his own jealous hatred, soon grew weary of delay, and, by a glance of his eye, encouraged the 55 tormentors to proceed.

Weucha, who, eager for this sanction, had long stood watching the countenance

5

death that an honest man might not wish
to die. Look at that noble Pawnee, Te-
ton, and see what a red-skin may become,
who fears the Master of Life, and follows
his laws. How many of your people has
he sent to the distant prairies!' he con-
tinued in a sort of pious fraud, thinking,
that while the danger menaced himself,
there could surely be no sin in extolling
the merits of another; how many howling to
Siouxes has he struck, like a warrior in
open combat, while arrows were sailing in
the air plentier than flakes of falling snow!
Go! will Weucha speak the name of one
enemy he has ever struck?'

bloody weapon, he darted through the opening left by the frightened women, and seemed to descend the declivity at a single bound.

Had a bolt from heaven fallen in the midst of the Teton band it would not have occasioned greater consternation than this act of desperate hardihood. A shrill plaintive cry burst from the lips of all the women, and there was a moment that even the oldest warriors appeared to have lost their faculties. This stupor endured only for the instant. It was succeeded by a yell of revenge, that burst from a hundred 15 throats, while as many warriors started forward at the cry, bent on the most bloody retribution. But a powerful and authoritative call from Mahtoree arrested every foot. The chief, in whose countenance disappointment and rage were struggling with the affected composure of his station, extended an arm towards the river, and the whole mystery was explained.

'Hard-Heart!' shouted the Sioux, turning in his fury, and aiming a deadly blow at the head of his victim. His arm fell into the hollow of the captive's hand. For a single moment the two stood, as if 20 entranced in that attitude, the one paralyzed by so unexpected a resistance, and the other bending his head, not to meet his death, but in the most intense attention. The women screamed with triumph, 25 for they thought the nerves of the captive had at length failed him. The trapper trembled for the honor of his friend; and Hector, as if conscious of what was passing, raised his nose into the air, and ut- 30 tered a piteous howl.

But the Pawnee hesitated only for that moment. Raising the other hand, like lightning, the tomahawk flashed in the air, and Weucha sank to his feet, brained 35 to the eye. Then cutting a way with the

Hard-Heart had already crossed half the bottom which lay between the acclivity and the water. At this precise moment a band of armed and mounted Pawnees turned a swell, and galloped to the margin. of the stream, into which the plunge of the fugitive was distinctly heard. A few minutes sufficed for his vigorous arm to conquer the passage, and then the shout from the opposite shore told the humbled Tetons the whole extent of the triumph of their adversaries.

(1827)

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK (1790-1867)

The early years of the Republic produced few poets, and amid the general crudeness of the time and the real hunger for culture and for beauty the few poets that did appear were, as we see to-day, extravagantly over-rated. Undoubtedly the most over-rated of them all, not even excepting Willis and Percival, was Fitz-Greene Halleck, for a generation placed among the leaders of the American choir of singers. Slowly yet steadily has his fame decreased until to-day he holds but a hazardous place in the anthologies by reason of his once widely declaimed 'Marco Bozzaris' and the first stanza of his tribute to Drake. It is conventional to classify him with the Knickerbockers,' but he was of old Puritan stock, like Bryant, a native of Connecticut, and he spent almost the first quarter of a century of his life and nearly the last quarter of a century of it in the New England environment to which he belonged. During his active middle years he was in New York City, a clerk in the establishment of John Jacob Astor, arriving there in 1813 some five years after Irving and Paulding had amused the city with their Salmagundi papers. The newness and the excitement of his first years in the metropolis and the enthusiasm of his new-found city friend, young Dr. Drake, stimulated him into a short period of poetic creation. With Drake he contributed a series of poetic effusions, signed Croaker' and 'Croaker & Co..' to the New York Evening Post, a sort of poetic Salmagundi, the remarkable vogue of which bears testimony to the poetic leanness of the time. Spurred by the high spirits and the eager enthusiasm of his young friend Drake, he wrote his martial song Marco Bozzaris,' contributed the last stanza to Drake's 'American Flag.' and after the untimely death of the young poet mourned him in a quatrain that has passed into the universal currency of quotation. His once greatly admired Alnwick Castle,' his Burns' with a few distinctive lines, and his 'Fanny' that was published in more than one edition before its early readers were satisfied, all seem lifeless and tawdry to-day. Halleck's last years were barren of literary product.