How could poor Sprigg have ever imagined that he had but to put on a pair of red moccasins to captivate the fancy and win the love of such a little angel as Bertha Bryant? Had she seen him so bedizened--"Fop-Indian!" "Jack-Monkey!" would have been the first thoughts to pop into her judicious little head, and Sprigg might have chased her till he had worn his red moccasins slip-shod, and no more have caught her had he, indeed, been a monkey, chasing a dove or a bird of paradise. That he was spared such a humiliation was because he had become by strange chance an object of Manitou interest, and was not allowed to carry out the ridiculous programme he had proposed to himself. What a pity it is that many of us grown-up Spriggs can not become objects of similar interest, to be dealt with in the like manner, even to the bleeding-heart degree, and made to abandon, perforce, many a purpose in life, which, when it is too late to escape the humiliation of its failure, or, worse, still, of its success, proves to be not a whit less paltry or preposterous than the programme our little hero had in view when he donned his red moccasins. CHAPTER XXI. The Manitou Butterfly. On the evening of the seventh day, hardly had Bertha deflowered the bush, when suddenly it burst again into bloom more glorious than ever before. Hardly had the flowers unfolded, when they resolved themselves into a blood-red mist, which quickly enveloped the whole bush, and when it had cleared away the Manitou arbor vitae had vanished--a thing too beautiful to be seen again in a lifetime. But now, when the last culling of that mysterious life-giving flower was strewn upon him, Sprigg not only smiled with brighter, more present intelligence than at any previous time, but opened his long-closed eyes. And how beautiful his eyes had grown! As uncloudedly clear, as innocently sweet, as those of an infant awaking from a long and untroubled slumber. Raising himself, unassisted, to his elbow, he began gazing about him, though with too dreamy a look for any clear perception of his surroundings. "I am going," said he, talking as dreamily as he looked, and beginning with the falsehood which he had sent back to his mother as he was running away from home--"I am going to our best spring, down there in the edge of the woods, to fetch dear Meg of the Hills a good, cool drink of water. Then I am going to grandpap's house with Nick of the Woods. But where is the fence, and the trees--where are they? And the bright sun? I am still asleep and only dreaming." So concluding, he lay quietly down again, and closing his eyes, remained perfectly still for some moments, as if to assure himself that he had concluded aright and was really asleep. In a little while, however, he recommenced his dreamy talk, which, with his eyes still closed, and occasional intervals of sleep-like silence, he kept up for many minutes. His words, to those who listened, seemed but the incoherent wandering of a feverish fancy.