It was a clear bright summer morning. There was a balmy sweetness in the air, and melody in all the groves; but they won not the ear, they regaled not the sense of Minaree, whose heart sunk within her, as she saw her beloved Ash-te-o-láh launch his canoe into the stream, and dash away over its glassy surface, like a swallow on the wing. Ere he dipped his paddle in the water, he turned and gracefully waved her a parting salute, the affectionate desire to stay and soothe the troubled spirit of her dream, still struggling with that lofty pride which told him that he had never yet shrunk from any form of danger, or known the name of fear. The lands bordering on the Katahba, were covered, for many a league, with a dense and thriving population. More than twenty tribes were clustered there into one powerful fraternity, capable of bringing two thousand warriors into the field. Their grounds were extensively cultivated, their forests abounded with the choicest game, and their rivers with fish, and they regarded themselves as the most prosperous of the nations. Nothing could exceed the romantic beauty and loveliness of some of their villages. Stretching along the banks of the rivers, and embowered deeply in the luxurious forests of that favored clime, the numerous wigwams, simple enough in their construction, but adorned here and there with the trophies of war or the chase, and often alive with the athletic sports of the young Indians, formed a scene as animated and picturesque as ever glowed on the bosom of the earth--a scene of patriarchal life, such as cannot now be found among all the families of men. Conspicuous among them all was the wigwam of Ash-te-o-láh. The hand of Minaree was visible in the tasteful arrangement of a few simple ornaments about the door, and the trailing of a white flowering vine over its walls, which fell in luxuriant festoons, or floated in feathery pensiles on every side. Minaree stood in the door of the wigwam, watching the retreating form of her lord, as his light canoe swept down with the current of the river, till it was lost in the distance, and then pensively, and as if unconsciously to herself, resumed her solemn chant, weaving the while a wreath of her wild flowering vine. He has gone to the chase, my brave hunter has gone-- He will not return in the moonlight, or morn; Minaree shall look out at the cabin door, But her bold brave hunter shall come no more; There's a cloud in her wigwam--a fire in her brain, For her warrior hunter shall ne'er come again.