He said no more on the subject, and I would not question him. We took our last walk on the prairie. Everything was in readiness for our departure to meet the expected United States mail-train. We returned to the lodge, and Saul left me for a few minutes to make some last arrangements with Meotona. An old Indian woman, whose eyes I had often noticed on me, crept stealthily in at my tent-door, and said to me in English,-- "Let me be welcome; I come to teach you." I knew that among her tribe she had the reputation of a prophetess, but I had never heard her speak English. "I am waiting to hear," I said; and this woman fixed her sad, solemn eyes on me and said,-- "Child of the pale man, a great many moons ago, when my eyes were bright like the little quiver-flower, and the young warriors sought me in my father's wigwam, I had a sister. Her name _he_ called Luella. The chiefs of the tribe were going for a grand hunt on the Huron. Some pale men from across the lake came to join them. One of them looked on Luella, and her eyes grew soft and sad. She wrapped her blanket about her, and walked often under the stars at night. Through the winter, she would not talk with the young chiefs; and when the leaves grew again, the pale men came back, and Luella walked again under the stars. She learned English, and no one knew who taught her. "The hunt went on again until the snow came; and when the pale men left the lodge, Luella was lost from the wigwam. The warriors went in pursuit, but they came back without Luella. She was not with the pale-faces. Many moons came and went, and one night I heard a voice singing in the distance. I knew it was Luella, and she led a child by her side, and he said soft English words. She would not come into the lodge. She only came to tell me that she was with the white man who loved her, that she was content, and to show me her boy; and Luella walked away into the night again, and I told no one. "I made many moccasons, and wove baskets of twigs; and when Uncas, the chief of the tribe, my father, went to the great hunting-ground beyond the Sun, then I gathered up my moccasons, and went out before the gate opened to let the light through. I left the wigwam for Luella. I hated white people; I hated the white man who stole Luella from me; but the pale-faces took my moccasons, and gave me white wampum, and with that I crossed the lake, and went from town to town, and everywhere I showed the people this,"--and the wrinkled woman extended her hand to me; but, at the instant, Saul lifted the tent-curtain and came in. She hid her hand under her blanket, and, wrapping it closely about her, walked out without a glance to testify that ever she had spoken. Saul asked me the cause of this visit, and I was about to tell him, when there arose in the lodges without such screams and cries as brought all the population into the air. The Indian woman who so lately had left my tent lay on the ground, in the apparent extreme of agony.