“Why, Master Reginald, did the mad spirit possess you to jump into the Muskingum, and dive like an otter, where the water was swift and dark as the Niagara rapids! Pardie, though, it was bravely done! another minute, and our red–skin friend would have been in the hunting–ground of his forefathers. Give me your hand, master; I love you better than ever! I had a mind to take a duck myself after ye; but thought, if bad luck came, I might serve ye better with the canoe.” While rapidly uttering these broken sentences, he handed to Reginald the hunting–shirt, rifle, and other things, which he had brought over in the canoe, and wrung the water out of his cap, being all the time in a state of ill–dissembled excitement. This done, he turned to the young Indian, who was standing aside, silent and motionless. The guide scanned his features with a searching look, and then muttered audibly, “I knew it must be he.” A gleam shot from the dark eye of the Indian, proving that he heard and understood the phrase, but not a word escaped his lips. Reginald, unable to repress his curiosity, exclaimed, “Must be who, Baptiste? Who is my Indian friend—my brother?” A lurking smile played round the mouth of the guide, as he said in a low tone to the Indian, “Does the paint on my brother’s face tell a tale? Is his path in the night? Must his name dwell between shut lips?” To this last question the Indian, moving forward with that peculiar grace and innate dignity which characterised all his movements, replied, “The War–Eagle hides his name from none: his cry is heard from far, and his path is straight: a dog’s scalp is at his belt!” Here he paused a moment; and added, in a softened tone, “But the bad Spirit prevailed: the waters were too strong for him; the swimming–warrior’s knife came; and again the War–Eagle saw the light.” “And found a brother—is it not so?” added Reginald. “It is so!” replied the Indian: and there was a depth of pathos in the tone of his voice as he spoke, which convinced Reginald that those words came from the heart. “There were three horses with you in the bac,” said the guide: “two are under yonder trees;—where is the third?” “Dead, among those rocks below the rapids,” answered War–Eagle, quietly. “He was a fool, and was taken from a fool, and both are now together;” as he spoke he pointed scornfully to the scalp which hung at his belt. Reginald and Baptiste interchanged looks of uneasy curiosity, and then directing their eyes towards the distant spot indicated by the Indian, they distinguished the battered carcass of the animal, partly hid by the water, and partly resting against the rock, which prevented it from floating down with the current.