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The fugitive sailed away on the smoke, going up and up, past beautiful lakes and hunting-grounds stocked with deer, large fields of corn and beans, tobacco and squashes; past great companies of handsome Indians, whose wigwams were hung full of dried venison and bear's meat. And so he went on and up to the wig-wam of the Great Chief. Here he rested.
They bid adieu to all the comforts and conveniences of civilized life, to vegetate at some desolate, solitary post, hundreds of miles, perhaps, from any other human habitation, save the wig-wam of the savage; without any other society than that of their own thoughts, or of the two or three humble individuals who share their exile.
When he came to that part of the story where the Indian comes from his wig-wam to meet the white man, he said, nearly in the same words used by Big-neck, "While I shake hands with my white brother, my white brother shoots me down my best chief" he here paused, and lifting his eyes above the heads of the auditors, his lip curling a little, but resuming again, almost immediately, its natural position, he pronounced in a low but distinct guttural tone, the Indian word meaning "my son."
But he pretended not to know what the Indians were going to do with him there, and he easily deceived his guard, who seems to have been a good-natured, simple fellow. Knight asked him if they were going to live together like brothers in the same wig-wam, and the Indian answered they were, and they went in very friendly talk.
They came to the door of a large wig-wam. A chief stood in the door. He shaded his eyes with both hands, as if the sun were shining in his face. Then he made a little speech. He said, "French-men, how bright the sun shines when you come to see us! We are all waiting for you. You shall now come into our houses in peace." The Il-li-nois Indians made a feast for their new friends.
How greatly should I prefer eating my daily meals with my family, in an Indian wig-wam, to boarding at a table d'hote in these capacious hotels; the custom, however, seems universal through the country, at least we have met it, without a shadow of variation as to its general features, from New Orleans to Buffalo.
I I think I had better go away again." "There was a time, in the days of Arcadia, when Philip would have laughed, and a second deer would have lain at the door of your wig-wam " "Philip is changed." "He is quieter " "Yes." "A little sterner " "Yes." "Like one perhaps who has abandoned a dream!" "I do not know." "Why does he ride away for days with Sho-caw?" "I have wondered."
Ask any one of them the question now, and he will tell you that an immortality, each, in his own wig-wam, and with his weight of years and infirmity upon him, would satisfy all his expectations. If they look at the vigor of their young, it is to recollect that they themselves once were so, and to repine at the recollection.
The white men bought this when they could not get meat. But there were days when they did not have anything to eat. They were very friendly with the Indians. One day some of the men went to make a visit to an Indian village. The Indians gave them something to eat. In the Indian wig-wam where they were, there was a head of a dead buffalo.
"Do you see the lady," said Aristabulus, "that is just coming out on the lawn, in front of the 'Wig-wam?" for that was the name John Effingham had seen fit to give the altered and amended abode. "Here, Miss Effingham, more in a line with the top of the pine beneath us." "I see the person you mean; she seems to be looking in this direction."
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