"But," said the missionary, "everything is in remarkable order here. Don't you see that each man has his place, and on the side of the lodge a snug chance to stow away or hang up his personal effects. We whites could scarcely arrange the little space with more fairness and mathematical precision, so as to make the most of the room." It was indeed so; and much did the callers marvel at the intelligent system that prevailed. "Some one has had a hand in the ordering of affairs here, who has more intellect than we are accustomed to attribute to the red man;" and the minister glanced at the young Indian, as if to say, "It must be due to him." But twilight was falling, and the villagers started on their way home. Scarcely, however, had they passed the hedge of elders and the rows of young oaks that hid the abode of the Indians from view, when from within the wigwam there went up a startling whoop and yell, mingled with derisive laughter. Mrs. Payson stood still, pale with terror, as if expecting to see the savages rush out to massacre them. But they kept within their tent, their horrible whoopings and mockings continuing until the whites were well away. "I do not like the sound of those yells," said the missionary, soberly. "O, the Indians are only amusing themselves by trying to scare the women and children," replied Mr. Caswell, merrily. "There is more than that intended," returned the minister. "There was the bitterest irony and hatred expressed in those tones. If the authors of them dared, or it was in their plan to do so now, they would spring upon us with the eagerness of so many beasts of prey." The next day eight of the Indians walked into the village, one after the other, as is the Indian way, and called at the hotel to beg. They had found their tongues over night, and could manage, not only to understand, when it was for their interest, what was said to them, but in broken English make reply. They were a fine set of men, physically--tall, broad-chested, erect; and, wrapped in their white and red blankets, they made a formidable appearance. There was no touch of fawning or crouching in their manner. They demanded the articles given them, rather than begged. You would have thought them lords of the soil, come to collect rent of tardy tenantry. The young Indian, however, still preserved his individuality, and various romantic conjectures were conjured up in imaginative heads concerning him. Some went so far as to assert that he had no Indian blood in him, and started the theory that he must have had white parentage, and that he might have been stolen, when a child, from some noble white family. But the more experienced of the pioneers set that at rest by affirming that they could tell the pure, unmixed Indian, and that he was one. Tom lingered much about him. "O," said he to the missionary, "if I could only talk with him, how I would love to teach him how to read, and speak to him of the blessed things in the Bible!"