“I am now residing with Netnokwa and her daughter,—the former is chief of the Ottawas, and adopted me to prevent my meeting with a worse fate. They are as kind as they can be, and her daughter I love as I would a sister. But, oh! happy, happy thought! that I am once more to return to the few friends who are yet left me. I have a world of things to tell when I meet. Remember me kindly to the hunter who, Oloompa tells me, was with you, and devise some plan for my return.—Come yourself, Richard,—come quick, and add another to the many inducements I already have to love you. My spirits are all in a flutter, for Oloompa is just about to set out.—Oh! has he not acted nobly! thinking of the whites as he does. Farewell,—may heaven bless you. “GAY FOREMAN.” Gay having finished her letter, delivered it to Oloompa, and his preparations being made, he bade them all farewell, renewed his promise to return with Rolfe, and, accompanied by the kind wishes of Netnokwa and the two maidens, sat out upon his journey. CHAPTER XVII. “Well might his lays be lofty! soaring thought From Nature's presence tenfold grandeur caught: Well might bold Freedom's soul pervade the strains, Which startled eagles from their lone domains, And, like a breeze, in chainless triumph, went Up through the blue resounding firmament.” MRS. HEMANS. The absence of Oloompa shed a gloom for a few days over the little circle he left. Miskwa felt that she loved him, and the sympathies of Gay were also strongly enlisted in his favour. His feelings against the whites, as a people, he had avowed in her presence, and when she recollected the dreary region through which he was then travelling, and the many difficulties and hardships he must encounter, and thought he was doing all this for one who at most was but a stranger to him, her sympathies were so great, that for a short time even the pleasure arising from the recollection of the object of his journey, was sensibly diminished. But as time glided on, this feeling passed away, and gave place in her breast to the joy of anticipating his return, accompanied, as she fondly hoped, by Rolfe, of whom she had so often, and so kindly thought, and who had so long and so eagerly sought her. But, leaving Oloompa to continue his journey, let us revert to the designs of Elkswatawa and Tecumseh.