"Father, listen. I am about to speak. Before the great war with the British brother (1812) that boy's father struck down to the earth a pale-face who had done him wrong. The white man died. He who wrongs another does not deserve the sun. He died, and his soul went to the shadows. The British took the red warrior prisoner for killing this man who had wronged him. Waubeno was a little one then, when they took his father prisoner. "The British told the old warrior that they had condemned him to die. "'I am not afraid to die,' said the warrior. 'Let me go to the Ouisconsin (Wisconsin) and see my family once more, and whisper my last wish in the ear of my boy, and I will return to you and die. I will return at the sunrise.' "'You would never return,' said the commander of the stockade. "The warrior strode before him. "'Can a true man lie?' "The commander looked into his face, and saw his soul. "'Well, go,' said he. 'I would like to see an Indian who would come back to die.' "The warrior went home, under the stars. He told his squaw all. He had six little children, and he hugged them all. Waubeno was the oldest boy. He told him all, and pressed him to his heart. He whispered in his ear.--What was it he said, Waubeno?" The shadowy form of the boy swayed in the dim light, as he answered. He said: "'Avenge my death! Honor my memory. The Great Spirit will teach you how.' That is what my father said to me, and I felt the beating of his heart." There was a deep silence. Then Black Hawk said: "The warrior looked down on the Ouisconsin under the stars. He looked up to heaven, and cried, 'Lead thou my boy!' Then he set his face toward the stockades of Prairie du Chien. "He strode across the prairie as the sun was rising; he arrived in time, and--Father, listen!" There was another silence, so deep that one might almost hear the puffing smoke as it rose on the air. "_They shot him!_ That is his boy, Waubeno." Jasper stood silent; he thought of Johnnie Kongapod's story, and the night-scene at Pigeon Creek. "I shall teach him a better way," said Jasper, at last. "I will lead him to honor the memory of his great father in a way that he does not now know. The Great Spirit will guide us both. His father was a great man. I will lead him to become a greater." "Father," said the boy, coming forward, "I will always be true to you, but I have sworn by the stars." Jasper stood like one in a dream. Could such a tale as this be true among savages? Honor like this only needed the gospel teaching to do great deeds. Jasper saw his opportunity, and his love of mankind never glowed before as it did then. He folded his hands, closed his eyes, and his silent thoughts winged upward to the skies. CHAPTER XI. THE CABIN NEAR CHICAGO.