Bending upon the snow-shoes
With a long and limber stride;
And I hailed the dusky stranger,
As we travelled side by side.
But no token of communion
Gave he by word or look,
And the fear-chill fell upon me
At the crossing of the brook.
For I saw by the sickly moonlight,
As I followed, bending low,
That the walking of the stranger
Left no foot-marks on the snow.
Then the fear-chill gathered o'er me,
Like a shroud around me cast,
As I sank upon the snow-drift
Where the shadow hunter passed.
And the otter-trappers found me,
Before the break of day,
With my dark hair blanched and whitened
As the snow in which I lay.
But they spoke not, as they raised me;
For they knew that in the night
I had seen the shadow hunter,
And had withered in his blight.
Sancta Maria speed us!
The sun is falling low,—
Before us lies the Valley
Of the Walker of the Snow!
REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
A New History of the Conquest of Mexico. In which Las Casas' Denunciations of the Popular Historians of that War are fully vindicated. By ROBERT ANDERSON WILSON, Counsellor at Law; Author of "Mexico and its Religion," etc., Philadelphia: James Challen & Son. Boston: Crosby, Nichols, & Co.