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. Do
the Tetons know a Loup? Let them look
at him again. His head is painted; his 10
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.'

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 36 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.'

'The Wahcondah made me like these you see waiting for a Dahcotah judgment; 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 Saltlake beyond the mountains?'

'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,

Le Balafré turned away in disappointment from the youth, and approached the 40 Aye; but it was only that I might do 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,' 55 he said; but the eye of Le Balafré is no longer like the eagle's. Of what color is his skin?'

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 dozen withered crones, who have
already been mentioned as having forced
themselves into a conspicuous part of the
circle. The outcry was excited by a sud-
den change in the air of Hard-Heart.
When the old men turned towards the
youth, they saw him standing in the very
center of the ring, with his head erect,
his eye fixed on vacancy, one leg advanced
and an arm a little raised, as if all his 10
faculties were absorbed in the act of
listening. A smile lighted his counten-
ance for a single moment, and then the
whole man sank again into his former
look of dignity and coldness, suddenly re- 15
called to self-possession. The movement
had been construed into contempt, and
even the tempers of the chiefs began to
be excited. Unable to restrain their fury,
the women broke into the circle in a body, 20
and commenced their attack by loading
the captive with the most bitter revilings.
They boasted of the various exploits which
their sons had achieved at the expense of
the different tribes of the Pawnees. They 25
undervalued his own reputation, and told
him to look at Mahtoree, if he had never
yet seen a warrior. They accused him of
having been suckled by a doe, and of
having drunk in cowardice with his moth- 30
er's milk. In short, they lavished upon
their unmoved captive a torrent of that
vindictive abuse, in which the women of
the savages are so well known to excel,
but which has been too often described 35
to need a repetition here.

The effect of this outbreaking was in-
evitable. Le Balafré turned away dis-
appointed, and hid himself in the crowd;
while the trapper, whose honest features 40
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 jeal
ous 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

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

a woman.

The heartless savage commenced his efforts by flourishing his tomahawk about the head of the captive, in such a manner as to give reason to suppose that each blow would bury the weapon in the flesh, while it was so governed as to not touch the skin. To this customary expedient, Hard-Heart was perfectly insensible. His eye kept the same steady, riveted look on the air, though the glittering ax described in its evolutions a bright circle of light before his countenance. Frustrated in this attempt, the callous Sioux laid the cold edge on the naked head of his victim, and began to describe the different manners in which a prisoner might be flayed. The women kept time to his cruelties with their taunts, and endeavored to force some expression of the lingerings of nature from the insensible features of the Pawnee. But he evidently reserved himself for the chiefs, and for those moments of extreme anguish, when the loftiness of his spirit might evince. itself in a manner better becoming his high and untarnished reputation.

The eyes of the trapper followed every movement of the tomahawk with the interest of a real father, until at length, unable to command his indignation, he exclaimed,—

My son has forgotten his cunning. This is a low-minded Indian, and one easily hurried into folly. I cannot do the thing myself, for my traditions forbid a dying warrior to revile his persecutors, but the gifts of a red-skin are different. Let the Pawnee say the bitter words and purchase an easy death. I will answer for his success, providing he speaks before the grave men set their wisdom to back the folly of this fool.'

The savage Sioux, who heard his words without comprehending their meaning, turned to the speaker and menaced him with death for his temerity.

'Ayc, work your will,' said the unflinching old man; I am as ready now as I shall be to-morrow. Though it would be a

death that an honest man might not wish to die. Look at that noble Pawnee, Teton, 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 continued 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 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.

5 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

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 disappointment and rage were struggling 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.