If an arrow had pierced the bosom of the young mother, she could not have felt a sharper pang than that which the Indian's proposal had caused her. She flew towards her boy, who stood beside the chief looking into his face with pleased and innocent wonder, and, snatching him to her arms, would have rushed away with him. A gloomy frown came over the sachem's brow, and he remained silent. The judge knew that all their lives depended upon a right action at once; and following his daughter, who was retreating with her child into the woods, he said to her, "Stay, stay, my daughter; bring back the child, I beg of you! I would not risk a hair of his head, for he is as dear to me as to you,--but, my child, he must remain with the chief! God will watch over him, and he will be as safe in the sachem's wigwam as in your arms beneath your own roof." She yielded, and her darling boy was left; but who can tell the agony of the mother's heart during the following days? Every night she awoke from her sleep, seeming to hear the screams of her child calling upon its mother for help. How slowly and heavily passed the hours away. But at last the third day came. The morning waned away, and the afternoon was far advanced, yet the chief came not. There was sorrow over the whole home, and the mother, pale and silent, walked her room in despair. The judge, filled with anxious doubts and fears, looked through the opening in the forest towards the sachem's abode. At last, as the rays of the setting sun were thrown upon the tops of the tall trees around, the eagle feathers of the chief were seen dancing above the bushes in the distance. He came rapidly, and the little boy was at his side. He was gayly attired as a young chief: his feet dressed in moccasins, a fine beaver-skin thrown over his shoulders, and eagle's feathers stuck in his hair. He was laughing and gay, and so proud of his honors that he seemed two inches taller than before. He was soon clasped in his mother's arms, and in that brief moment of joy she seemed to pass from death to life. "The white man has conquered!" said the chief; "hereafter let us be friends. You have trusted the Indian; he will repay you with confidence and kindness." And he was true to his word. Judge W---- lived many years, laying there the foundation of that flourishing community which has spread over a wide extent of western New York. The Far West, in my childhood, meant the "Genesee country," as far as the falls of Niagara. BIG THUNDER--A WINNEBAGO CHIEF.