Hast thou mourned! oh mourn no longer:
Death is strong, but love is stronger.
The amnesties that have been made between the Sioux and Chippeways for many years have been of short duration: it appears now that the two nations will be friendly only when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together, should the two nations exist at that happy period. The sight of each other's blood is as precious to a Chippeway or Sioux as would be the secret of perpetual youth to an octogenarian, who eagerly grasps his tenure for life, loving, and fearing to lose it to the last. At the time of my story, a longer peace than usual had existed between the two nations. They hunted and danced, and even married together. Many a child, that had never trembled at hearing the war-whoop, wondered at the old men's stories, that invariably closed with the triumph of the Dacota tomahawk over the weaker blade of the enemy: but that child grew to be a man only to hate a Chippeway, as his father had done in youth; one offence had brought on another, and the slumbering spirit of vengeance that had reposed in the hearts of the red men was roused up, and with a double vengeance foe sought foe. In vain were the women and children hidden in the holes of the earth at night for safety; they were hunted out, as the starving wolf scents its prey: after the desperate fight was over, when the strong were laid low, then were the aged and the infants dragged from their hiding-places.
The red morning sun, parting the sullen clouds, hid again from the sight of the blood that was covering the ground, and dyeing the very stream where but yesterday the village belle, seated by its fair banks, listened to the words that every maiden loves to hear.
A sad scene was presented at the village of Gray Eyes: the old chief lay helpless among those who had obeyed his slightest word, the glaze of death dimming an eye that for more than eighty winters had watched the snow, as it drifted from vale to vale. Life had not yet departed: you could feel the pulse still flutter, and the heart faintly beat, but the thoughts of the chief were in spirit-land, and his soul hasted to burst its prison bars, that it might renew the combat where the Dacotas would aye be the victors.
A gleam of life and consciousness passed over his faded features, as an Indian girl advanced towards him: it was a child he dearly loved, soon to be left without a protector.
"My daughter," said the old man feebly, as the maiden threw herself on the ground beside him, and covered with her tears his cold hands; then raising herself, as she saw the wound still bleeding, she tore a piece from her okendokenda, and endeavoured to staunch it. "It is too late, my child; the soul of your father longs to join the warriors who live in the land of spirits. Where are your brothers?"
"There!" said the weeping girl, pointing to the dead bodies that lay across each other.
"And your mother?"