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REEDYRILL.

(Continued.)

IX. FAIRY LAND.

THE steamboat in which I had thus unexpectedly embarked, was the Rob Roy, bound for St. Louis, and my white chief was Colonel Sebastian Overton, U. S. A., who had been on a topographical exploration to the Falls of St. Anthony and thereabouts.

It is needless for me to dwell on the new world of wonders in which I now found myself; how amazed and delighted I was with the infinity of unaccountable and beautiful things I saw around me; how everything seemed the work of enchantment to me, and all that; it can be more readily imagined by the reader than described.

Col. Overton made a pet of me, and so infatuated was I with the new order of existence which had broke upon me, that I even consented to give up my home in the wilderness, and go and live with him in the now no longer hated land of the white man.

I soon became accustomed to the steamboat, as I was taught to call it, and delighted to ramble all over it with my friend, the Colonel.

"Ernie, mon cher enfant," said he to me one day, as we stood on the forecastle, gazing at the scenery: "I don't believe you are an Indian, anyhow. Your eyes are blue and your skin fair, now that the paint has worn off, and your hair curly and light brown at the roots, where it has not been dyed."

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My father was a half-breed, and my mother a pale face," said I. "Well, I thought there could be but diablement little of the pure Indian you, for you are no more like them than I am. You say your mother

was a white; what was her name, do you know?"

"I know nothing of her," I replied, only what my father told me, and that was only that she was a white, and that she died when I was born. Whether she was Français or Anglais, I do not know."

"English, I'll be bound, there is none of Jean Crapeau about you?" 'I dont know."

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Well, I never was as much astonished in my life as when I saw you perched up on that tree, like a bizarre de marmose as you were, and the way you pitched into me with your couteau for laughing at your monkeyshines. But your mother-you say your father never told you anything about your mother? That was very strange."

"I never asked him but once, and then he promised to tell me, but it was just before I got lost, and, of course, that put an end to all informa tion on the subject.'

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Apropos," said the Colonel, lighting a cigar, "now is a good timejust sit down here by my side, and, as well as you can, give me a narrative of your adventures.' I had merely mentioned the fact before; I now gave him, as well as I could, about my chasing the heron, my roosting in the old sycamore, my discovery by the Aricarees and fortunate escape, some general outlines. They amused him exceedingly, and he frequently stopped me to declare that it was the most astonishing thing he ever

VOL. XXIX.-NO. I.

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heard of in his life, and it kept him in an immoderate fit of laughter all the time. I observed that the Colonel expressed freely his curiosity, and especially his astonishment, in a manner that an Indian would have thought disgraceful to his character.

As the boat turned a bend, I was interrupted in my story, which so amused my patron, by beholding in the distance, like the enchantment of a magician, a scene so strange, so splendid, so magnificent and unaccountable, that I stood specchless.

"It is the city of St. Louis," said the Colonel, tossing away his cigar with a nonchalance that came nearer my Indian ideas of stoicism than I could possibly do myself, and I could not but turn and ask:

"Did you ever see anything, Monsieur le Colonel, that astonished you so much as that?"

"Many a time," replied he, laughing, "I dont see anything particularly astonishing in that; come, the supper-bell is ringing, let us go down to tea."

When tea was over I found myself amid the din and uproar of a great city. We were at the wharf: I was bewildered by the swarm of hackmen, porters, draymen, whom I fancied, not knowing their real object, had some hostile intent, probably to take the boat by storm; and one, who seized hold of Colonel Overton's trunk, got a rap from me with a footstool that he won't forget.

It is needless to say how bewildered, astonished, and delighted I was with the grand city of enchantment, and everything in it. This can readily be imagined. When we arrived at the hotel, which I conceived to be some magnificent palace, we were shown into a vast gorgeously adorned room -the parlor,—and presently in came a beautiful young woman, and with a cry of delight she rushed forward and threw herself into Colonel Overton's arms, and covered him with kisses and embraces. The Colonel was extremely astonished, even more so than I, for a moment; but in an instant he seemed to recover from the first paroxysm, which nearly threw him into fits; and then he returned her embraces with a right good will. After an eager and somewhat lengthy chattering between them, as they sat on a sofa, my patron turned to me, who was seated on a small velvetcovered stool, and said,

"Ernie, mon prince, this is my squaw-they call her in French-Madame.-Madame Overton, let me acquaint you with Monseigneur Ernie, Prince des Pawnees."

Madame looked at me with a merry, inquisitive smile, and then rising, made a profound courtesy, with,

"Je donne les baises-mains à Monseigneur."

I replied by ducking my little pate to the soft, rich carpet at my feet, in all gravity; when, exclaiming, “ Quel, bijou !” she caught me up in her arms and smothered me with kisses.

We soon became great friends, Madame Lenora-as I was taught to call her and I. She spoke French with all fluency, and, moreover, had a knack of talking with her eyes and fingers, and the expressive varyings of her beautiful countenance, which I could have readily understood, had she possessed no other means of communication. I became devotedly attached to her and the good Colonel, both of whom overwhelmed me with kindness, and won my whole heart with bonbons and sugar-plums, which, being entirely novel to me, I must confess I had the weakness to relish

with insatiable gusto. Lenora, who had brown hair and gentle brown eyes, gave me as many bonbons as the Colonel, and more kisses, and her voice was as sweet and soft as the wood dove in spring-time.

We remained in St. Louis about a month from the day on which I was captured from the tree-top, by Colonel Overton's party. In that time I had attained some knowledge of English, for the Colonel and Madame Lenora refused any longer to speak to me in French; and when, especially in childhood, an unknown language becomes the only medium of intercourse, it is acquired with much facility and rapidity.

Strange and unaccustomed as was to me the new mode of existence into which I was thrown, I more readily became familiarized and accustomed to it than might have been supposed: being at that period of life when new facts are constantly offering themselves to the young stranger unacquainted with the routine of ratiocination and the generalization of cause and effect. As soon as the novelty wore off, I insensibly glided into and acknowledged all that I saw around me.

Madame Overton asked me, one day, to go shopping with her. We went down town in Mr. Howard's carriage, and soon were set down, by the footman, at a splendid jeweller's shop. While Madame was in the shop making purchases, I went out on the side-walk to amuse myself, looking at the strange sights around me, which I never grew tired of doing. As I was gazing at the signs over the door, the fine carriages rolling by, the shop windows full of gay prints, jewelry, and rich goods of every possible variety, the rumbling drays, the busy crowds of passers-bysuddenly my ear was arrested by a burst of loud music at a distance, and on looking down the street, I beheld a sight of splendor and gorgeous magnificence, which I could scarcely realize to be anything other than a vision. It was a grand golden chariot drawn by twenty splendid gray horses, two abreast, and each with a waving crest of white and red feathers on his head, filled with richly dressed men blowing each one a dif ferently shaped brass instrument, together with drums, gongs, and other instruments, of none of which did I know the name. As this beautiful line of horses came prancing down the street. I thought that they presented the most glorious and magnificent spectacle the world could afford. Behind the chariot came a lovely little open carriage pulled by four elegant little ponies in this vehicle was seated a youth of about my own size in a superb dress, and by his side sat a beautiful girl, ten or twelve years old, all covered with silver spangles. I conceived that they must be the son and daughter of the great chief of the white men, making a procession in Little imagined I that all this gorgeous pageantry was a circus

state. band.

Crowds of little boys and negro slaves were following, shouting and whooping in the rear, and involuntarily I joined the throng, forgetting Madame Lenora and everything else, in my excitement.

I followed along through several streets, listening to the music and admiring the gayly dressed little boy and girl in the phaeton, until at length, growing tired of the "show," I sat down on the marble steps of an ele gant and lofty building to rest myself, and breathe a moment before returning to the jeweller's shop. And then it occurred to me at once that I had already been gone at least half an hour, and that Madame would be waiting for me, perhaps had already returned to the hotel without me. I quickly jumped up and started down the street, walking as fast as I

could, but presently, as I began to look around me for the jeweller's shop, of which it had never occurred to me for a moment that I might lose sight, I found it was no where to be seen. I was lost-for the second time lost. To be lost in the wilderness seemed to me nothing, but in the city-it was terrible. I wandered about, around and around, until my head was perfectly bewildered, and the hopelessness of finding my way in the labyrinthine mazes of the city, came over me with a sense of dreadful helplessness and despair.

I didn't know the name of the hotel-didn't even know that it had a name. I couldn't speak English well enough to make known my wants, and one or two persons whom I contrived to ask how I could find Colonel Overton, only laughed at me, and I grew afraid and unwilling to ask any more. It was a bootless task for the child of the forest to thread the ways of the city. Oh! how my heart sunk within me. When I was lost

in the wilderness I had experienced the timidity and fears natural to childhood, but now a sense of drear and utter helplessness came over me, and the tears mounted into my eyes, but I would not let them flow-there was too much savage manliness about me for that. Stoicism and apathy to trouble, grief and danger, had been part of my training; so I walked moodily along, cogitating what to do to relieve myself from the quandary I was in. No idea, however, presented itself to my mind, but that of perambulating the streets until I found the jeweller's shop, or the hotel. I at length found myself on the wharf, with the broad murky river, the crowd of steamboats, and the din and bustle roaring and whizzing in my ears.

As I sauntered along, utterly at random, I imagined that I heard somebody, and the voice seemed familiar to me, calling me by name. I supposed it was only fancy, and walked on; but no-there it is again, close at my ear. I looked quickly around, and-surely it must be a dreamthere stood before me-1 No, 'tis no dream-with a wild cry of delight I sprang into his arms. It was Kahtoli!

Our joy and astonishment at this singular and unexpected encounter, cannot be described.

I narrated, as rapidly as possible, the adventures which had occurred to me. I mentioned Colonel Overton, and how he had found me in the treetop, and how kind he and madam had been to me.

At the name of Overton, Kahtoli started with a visible agitation. "Tell me,” cried he eagerly, "is it a stout, square-built man, with light blue eyes, and short, curly flaxen hair-a scar on his chin?"

"Ah! you know him, then? Yes, 'tis he."

"Yes, I know him," said he musingly; "come, let's sit on this bale of cotton a few minutes. This Colonel Overton you have so fallen in love with-did he know anything of me?-did he show no surprise at the name of Kahtoli ?"

"None."

"Ha!—"Tis well! But true, Kahtoli is not the name the white faces know me by. Had you mentioned another-had you mentioned Leon Paul, he would doubtless have remembered something-ay, something concerning-but, perhaps, after all it may not be the same." And he stopped abruptly.

Leon Paul?" I asked.

"Who is Leon Paul?"

"No matter, no matter. It is best, perhaps, that you should never know him. And now, my little Ernie, you have, doubtless, been living in

the luxury of the white man until you are spoiled for the rough life of the wilderness. Is it not so? Tell me now which you would prefer to go back with me to the forest, or to return to live with this white chief and the brown-eyed squaw who has been so kind to you?"

"My father! you know that I would love better the wigwam on the prairie with you, than the white man's palace in the grand city without you."

"It is well said," responded my father, with a gleam of satisfaction on his swarthy features. I am rejoiced to find that the serpent-tongued pale face has not beguiled you."

"My father, you have the blood of the pale face in you; my veins are full of it. Why, then, do you hate them so? Was not my mother a white? I can but love them."

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'Yes, your veins are full of their blood," said he bitterly; "would to heaven it were otherwise. Your mother was a pale face--the only one of the accursed race I ever loved. Yes, and I have the blood of a white, but the heart, the sympathies of the red man. Listen I trusted the white man; he deceived me. I confided in him; he abused my confi fidence he thwarted my most cherished hopes--he blasted forever my happiness. Have I not reason to hate the vile deceiver? I lived with the white men then. I was born and raised with that false, treacherous race. I fled from them, and came to dwell among the truc-hearted children of the forest. I gave up lands, and slaves, and name, to come and lead the tribe of my Indian ancestry."

"But, father, you have not told me how it is that I find you in the great city, so far away from our home in the woods. By what means did you learn that I was here ?"

"I never knew it till this moment. I saw you as I walked along; there was something about you that struck me, though I did not recog nize you--never dreamed of finding you here. As I walked along behind you, I got a glimpse of the blue beads on your neck; it flashed upon me at once that it might be you, but your new garb altered your appearance so that I could not tell. I thought I would call your name, and see what effect it would have on you. I saw that you stopped and hesitated; I called again, and found, indeed, that it was you."

He, as well as myself, was dressed in English costume, and it was that which had created my difficulty in recognizing him. He wore a black frock coat, black cloth pantaloons and a hat, which altered his appearance very much.

Kahtoli gave me an account of what had transpired at the camp during my absence. That they had not been successful in their search for Tahee's child, but that they had got on the trail of a party of Aricarees who had, doubtless, carried her off; they pursued the Aricarees for two days, but at last lost their trail, never having come in sight of them, and had to return finally, and give up the chase.

When they returned, Kahtoli was informed that I also was missing, and they set out on another fruitless search. Ophie had seen me go towards the lake, and they set out in that direction. In hunting around it, they found my track, and traced it to the little dry branch; there they lost sight of it, but found several dried spots of blood on the pebbles. Not doubting but that it was mine, they were led to the conclusion that I had been seized by a bear or panther, and gave me up for dead. Not long

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