It spoke of covetous ambition.
Behind him, upon the hill top, of table shape, were poles standing up out of the earth. Around them the sward was trampled, and the scorched grass, worn in many directions into paths, signified that at no distant period the place had been inhabited.
The sign could not be mistaken; it was the site of an Indian encampment.
Elias Rody, as he turned from gazing on the panoramic view beneath, cast a glance of strange significance at these vestiges of the red-man’s habitation.
His features assumed a sharper cast, while a cloud came over his face.
“But for them,” he muttered, “my wishes would be accomplished, my desires fulfilled.”
What were his wishes? What his desires?
Ask the covetous man such a question, and, if he answered truly, his answer would tell a tale of selfish aspirations. He would envy youth its brightness, old age its wisdom, virtue its content, love its joys, ay, even Heaven itself its rewards, and yet, in the narrow bigotry of egotism, think he only claimed his own.
Elias Rody was a covetous man, and such were the thoughts at that moment in his mind.
They were too bitter for silence, and vented themselves in words, which the winds alone listened to.