“I am desolate; my heart is very bitter. The smoke of the wigwams of my clan rises no more; I alone am left. When the north wind tells where are the leaves of last summer I will say where are the warriors of my tribe. As the beaver the white man came among us, but he crushed us like the bear; the serpent sings on the rock but he bites in the grass. We were deceived and robbed of the lands of our fathers. Our destroyer is near, he is on the war-path, his hatchet is raised against the Great Father. Blind his eyes, trip his feet with magic, O Oki, and take the spell from the arm of Hemlock. The eagle soars to the mountain when the loon keeps to the valley; the snow-bird breasts the storm when the moose seeks the cedar-brake: the wolf knows no master and the catamount will not fly, so the Indian clings to his hunting-ground and will not be the slave of the stranger. Spirit, help to destroy the destroyer and to rob the robber. The hunted deer dies of his wounds in the strange forest. The arrows of the Indian are nigh spent and he mourns alone. The glory of our nation has faded as the fire of the forest in the morning-sun, and few live to take revenge. Oki, speak, and strengthen the heart of Hemlock for battle!” The Indian fell prostrate before the gaunt pillar of stone to which he spoke and lay there for some time. When he rose, there was a weary look in his impassive features. “The Spirit has spoken: he tells Hemlock he will answer him in a dream.” Advancing towards Morton he lay down and fell asleep. High above him shafts of sunlight were interwoven with the foliage of the trees that overhung the crest of the chasm, forming a radiant ceiling, when Morton awoke. The weirdly romantic gulf in which he lay, coupled with the strange scenes of the night, caused him to think the past was a dream, but going over the several details the sense of reality was restored, and there, a few feet from him, was stretched the sinewy form of the Indian. “Who could fancy that a being so stolid, heavy, and matter-of-fact,” asked Morton of himself, “should show such keenness of feeling and so active an imagination? And, yet, how little we know of what sleeps in the bosoms of our fellows. Mark that sullen pool above the cataract! How dead and commonplace its water appears. It is swept over the brink and, breaking into a hundred new forms, instantly reveals there dwelt dormant beneath its placid surface a life and a beauty undreamt of. We are not all as we seem, and so with this much-tried son of the forest.”