Terrible things indeed! Miss Slopham's manuscript ran with gore--the gore of the red-man always. Massacres, surprises, and butcheries, in which the white man had slaked, only to renew it, his notorious thirst for Indian blood, followed each other across the pages of the paper, leaving each a darkening trail behind. The government of these United States, which, in the inconsistent, uncontinuous, and often bungling way of all governments, has probably tried to do its duty by the Indian--often succeeding only in making its benevolence a source of pauperism, and often betrayed by unfaithful officials and corrupt citizens into shameful acts of bad faith--was portrayed as a huge ogre, a giant Blunderbore, drinking Indian blood from two-quart bowls, and never breakfasting but on Indian baby. Meantime there filed through Miss Slopham's flowing sentences, like a procession of children with banners, the mild and faithful Modoc, the unsophisticated Sioux, the exemplary Pi-Ute, the large-eyed and pensive Pottawattamie, the polished Nez-Perce, the amiable Pawnee, the meek and unobtrusive Ogallala, and the playful Apache. If there ever had been a massacre by Indians, or an act of savage cruelty by other than white men, it was not found necessary for the purposes of this paper to mention it. Perhaps emphasis is indispensable in advocating reforms, and Indian reforms are surely needed. At all events, there was no lack of accentuation in Miss Slopham's paper. The little audience murmured to each other of its literary skill, and noticed that Mr. Blagg, who was a high authority, wore an approving smile. "And now," she read, as she approached the end of the essay, "we have felt that there could be no better way to enlist the sympathies of practical men and women than to show them one of these unfortunate people as he is at home, in his native dress, in the picturesque pigments which he delights, in his innocent and child-like fancy, to adorn himself with, and to let you see how far he is from being the wretch he is represented to be, how clearly the natural mildness of his disposition, when unvexed by the tyranny of governments, shines through the manly beauty of his countenance. It has so happened that one of these poor creatures has been placed for a time under my charge" (and here a look of dawning suspicion began to appear simultaneously upon the faces of Miss Ayr and Miss Tristan), "and I shall be able to summon him in a few moments into your presence, and beg you to render, in behalf of this simple and suffering race, the kind yet impartial testimony of your own eyes. I ask this because"--