The brave, unobserved, had stationed two fleet horses near at hand, and silently waited the moment for action. The flames were about to envelop the victim, when, to the astonishment of all, Petalashara was seen severing the cords that bound her, and, with the swiftness of thought, bearing her off in his arms; and then, placing her upon one horse, and himself mounting the other, he bore her safely away to her friends and country. Such an act would have endangered the life of any ordinary warrior; but such was his sway over the tribe that no one presumed to censure the daring act.

Though not the equal of the white man in bodily strength, the Indian was his superior in endurance and fleetness of foot. Some of their best runners could make seventy or eighty miles in a day through the unbroken wilderness. A close observer of natural phenomena, in the densest forest the Indian could travel for miles in a straight line, and could note signs and sounds the white man could not perceive. His temperament is poetic and imaginative, and his simple eloquence possesses great dignity and force.

A little anecdote will give an idea of his native wit and shrewdness. A half-naked Indian was looking on at some workmen in the employ of Governor Dudley, of Massachusetts..

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Why don't you work and get yourself some clothes?" asked the

governor.

"Why don't you work?" retorted the son of the forest.

“I work head-work," said Dudley, pointing to his head.

The Indian said he was willing to work, and agreed to kill a calf for the governor. Having done so, he came for his pay.

"But," said the governor, "you have not dressed the calf." "No, no," said the Indian; "I was to have a shilling for killing him. Am he no dead, governor?" Finding himself out-witted, the governor gave him another shilling for dressing it. It was not long before the Indian came back demanding a good shilling in place of a bad one which he claimed that the governor had paid him. The governor gave him another. Returning a second time with still another brass piece to be exchanged, the governor, convinced of his knavery, offered him half a crown if he would deliver a letter for him. The letter was directed to the keeper of the prison, and ordered him to give the bearer a certain number of lashes.

The Indian suspected that all was not right, and, meeting a servant of the governor, induced him to take the letter to its address. The result of the Indian's stratagem was that a severe whipping was administered to

the unfortunate servant. The governor was greatly chagrined at being a second time out-witted by the Indian. On falling in with him some time after, he accosted him with some severity, asking him how he had dared to cheat and deceive him so many times.

"Head-work, governor; head-work," was the reply. Pleased at the fellow's wit and audacity, the governor freely forgave him.

Perhaps some of my younger readers may wonder how people could exist in a wilderness where there were no houses to live in, no markets where they could buy food, and no stores in which clothing and other necessary articles could be procured. If they look into the matter, they will find that the Creator had provided whatever was required by their simple mode of life, and that they had no artificial wants. For these they were indebted to the white man.

Formerly the Indians were clad in the skins of animals; a robe and breech cloth for the man, and a short petticoat for the women. On great occasions, as councils or war-dances, they daubed themselves with paint, the color being varied for joy or grief, peace or war. They also decorated themselves with beads, feathers, por

cupine quills, and parts of birds and animals. The women wore their hair long, the men shaved theirs off, except the scalp-lock, which was left as a point of honor.

For food the Indian relied upon the chase, the fisheries, and agriculture. Maize, or Indian corn, was his principal food. It grew luxuriantly without cultivation, was gathered by hand and roasted before the fire; a small supply of it parched and pounded sufficed for a long journey. He also raised beans and pumpkins, and a little tobacco. If all other supplies failed, he had nuts, roots, berries, and acorns, which grew wild. His cooking was simple and without seasoning, usually by roasting over a fire. Baking was done in holes in the ground, and water was boiled by throwing heated stones

into it.

MOCCASINS.

fixing long poles in the ground, bending them towards each other at the top, and covering them outside with bark or skins, and inside with mats. A bear-skin served for the door; an opening in the roof was the chimney. There were no windows. It could be quickly set up and easily removed. Its size was proportioned to the number it was to hold. In these dirty, smoky habitations men, women, and children huddled together. Some of the tribes built permanent villages, with streets and rows of houses; these were generally surrounded with palisades of logs and brushwood. Nearly all the tribes changed their abode at different seasons in pursuit of the various kinds of game.

A remarkable exception to the usual form of the Indian dwelling is found among the Pueblo, or village, Indians of New Mexico.

In the face of a line of cliffs extending over sixty miles on the western side of the Rio Grande, between Cochiti and Santa Clara, are seen numerous excavations which had once been human habitations, but which are now in ruins. At a distance they look like a long line of dark spots. They were approached by foot-paths and stairways cut in the rock, which was soft and easily worked, and were in tiers of two, three, four, and occasionally five, rows, one above the other and not far apart. The only entrance was by an arch-shaped door-way, widening until there was room enough within for a single family. Wooden structures in front served as out-door habitations for the women and children.

So numerous are these caves that one hundred thousand persons might have lived at once where only a few hundred of their descendants now dwell. It is wonderful how this region, which is exceedingly desolate, volcanic, and sterile, and in which there are few watercourses, could have sustained such a dense population.

The fort-like community houses of the Zuñi Indians outwardly present one unbroken wall of hard mud. Their inner faces consist of a series of terraces or houses, piled one above the other, from two to five stories in height. Each tier above is less than the one beneath by the width of one story, and is entered over the roof of the tier below. Formerly the only house-doors were hatchways in the roof; and to enter their habitation the family-babies, dogs, and all-went up an outside ladder to the roof, and down an inside ladder to the floor. Narrow door-ways cut in the rock are now made use of.

The Indian's implements of husbandry were of the rudest kind, yet he had learned many useful arts. He knew the art of striking fire; of making the bow with the string of sinew, and the arrow-head both of flint and bone; of making vessels of pottery; of curing and tanning skins;