"You white black-coats tell big lies. Him you call Adam no first man. My father long way off first man, and he was named in English Sour Mush; he father of all my tribe, and not Adam, as you say. Listen! the Great Spirit want somebody to live below here, and he say to my father, 'You go down yonder, and make people.' Well, he set out; at first he go very well; then, when he got little way farther, he go too fast, bang! down, down, down,-hardly fetch breath, he go so fast. Well, by❜m-by come birds, and put their wings under him, and let him down easy, very easy, and put him softly on the top of a tree on a high mountain. Well, he set there one, two, three day, and at last he grow very hungry, want to eat mighty much, and he say so to the Great Spirit; and Great Spirit tell him, 'Blow, blow on the waters.' Well, he blow, blow, blow, till water only up to his knee down on the prairie. But he say to the Great Spirit, 'May as well be deep like before; nothing to eat yet, very hungry.' Then the Great Spirit tell him blow again, and he send the winds to help him. And he blow, blow, blow, and the winds come and help him blow till all the water go away. Then Sour Mush he come down from the mountain, and his feet make deep tracks in soft mud; and, huh! out jump buffalo, deer, elk, and all sorts of game, and so my father get plenty to eat. Then Great Spirit in some time send him a wife, who come right out of a cave in the ground; and so in a great many moons we got to be a great nation. Huh! think Indian

don't know who first man as well as white black-coat?"*

The zealous wanderer was "like all wrath," as Bushfield said, with the poor Indian, for thus asserting his ancient belief. He denounced his tradition as an invention of Satan himself, instead of viewing it philosophically in the light of a strong corroboration of the actual occurrence of that great deluge the dim and vague traditions of which seem to pervade the earliest memorials of every people of the earth.

* This is a genuine tradition of the Osages.

Bushfield "trees a curious varmint."

next morning was signalized by a visit Irs. Judith, that woman of evil omen, Virginia now trembled to see approachThe came to announce the disappearance sford, and that he had not been at home ht. Virginia restrained her emotions iving this information, which excited st fearful forebodings. There was in rt a union of tenderness and firmness, ften found in women than men; and wherever found, is the parent of deep, lasting impressions. A shiver of annook her limbs, a paler hue abided on eek, and that was all. She dismissed dith, who denounced her in her private as the most insensible of mortals, to be affected on such an occasion; and took opportunity of consulting Mrs. DangerThe result was a communication to the which was immediately followed by a For the lost wanderer. It appeared, from mination of his room, that he had taken with him, except the clothes he wore. g remained to give the least clew to his ns, or to indicate whither he had gone. nel Dangerfield and Leonard lost no

toring the men of the village and

despatching them in all directions. But they returned, one by one, at different intervals, in the course of a few days, without having discovered the least traces, or gained the slightest information of the fugitive. Thus they remained in the most harassing uncertainty whether he had wandered no one knew whither, or had made away with himself, none knew how. We will not attempt to describe the feelings of Virginia, during this period of racking doubt; she made no display herself. To the eyes of the villagers, when they occasionally saw her, she appeared to be pursuing her usual course of domestic duties and avocations; and it was only the quick instinct of affection that detected the deep wound she had received. At the expiration of about a fortnight, a boat coming up the river from the Ohio, brought news of the body of a drowned man having been found about a hundred miles below, and though the description of his dress and person was vague and uncertain, there were circumstances enough to produce a conviction it was that of Rainsford. The particulars were cautiously communicated to Virginia, and received in silence. On the bosom of maternal affection she breathed a prayer for the repose of his immortal soul, and his name was mentioned no more.

But she did not think of him the less for saying nothing. She remembered his eloquence, his affection, his gentle kindness, his sufferings, and his death; yet she did not turn her back upon the world, because of a thousand blessings bestowed upon her, she had been deprived of one, though that one was the

dearest of all. Rainsford was seldom absent from her thoughts, and she grew, in time, to think of him as one whom, perhaps, the mercy of Heaven had snatched away from cureless misery, to the enjoyment of happiness. "Better that he should die thus, even thus, and be buried among strangers," she would say to herself, "than live to realize what he has so long anticipated."

Thus passed the time, and Rainsford was considered by all as no longer an inhabitant of this world, when one day as Bushfield returned to his home in the forest, after a long and unsuccessful chase, he found Mammy Phillis in great tribulation at having nothing to give him

for supper. He had come home in none of his best humours, for this first disappointment had brought a conviction to his mind that the game was fast emigrating, and that he must soon follow.

"What have you done with all those venison steaks I left hanging up there, you greedy old 'possum ?" said he.

"I no eat him, massa."

"You no eat him! who eat him then, I should like to know?"

"Why, gentiman did, tudder day."

"What gentiman, you beautiful snowball?" "Him go out all day wid massa, and shoot nothin."

"What, Rainsford ?"

"Ees, massa, here dis morning, and take away ebery ting he lay hands on."

"Why, you fool, he's been dead, I don't know