Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/225

Rh cloudless, excepting that the hunter's gun went off and shot one of our horses in the ear, and that a carriage broke down, but it was near the end of the journey and was taken all in good part, and thus was of no consequence.

I have heard a great deal about the Indians from Mr. and Mrs. K., in whose extremely agreeable family I have now my home. Mr. K. is the Government Agent in all transactions with the Indian tribes in these North Western States, and he and his family were among the earliest settlers in the Wilderness there. Mrs. K. who writes with facility and extremely well, has preserved in manuscript many incidents in the lives of the first colonists, and of their contests with the Indians, and among these many which occurred in her own family. The reading of these narratives is one of the greatest pleasures of the evenings; some are interesting in a high degree; some are full of cruel and horrible scenes, others also touchingly beautiful, and others again very comic.

There is material for the most beautiful drama in the history of the captivity of Mrs. K.'s mother and her free restoration. I know nothing more dramatic than the first terrible scene of the carrying off of the little girl; then the attachment of the Indian-chief to the child, the affection which grew up in his heart for her as she grew up in his tent, and was called by the savage tribe “the White Lily;” the episode of the attempt to murder her by the jealous wife of the Chief, and lastly the moment when the chief, after having for several years rejected all offers of negociation and gifts, both on the part of the parents and the Government for the restoration of the child, yielded at length to prayers, and consented to a meeting of the mother and daughter, but on the express condition that she should not seek to retain her; and then, when arrived at the appointed place of meeting,