Especially was this vain hope cherished by his younger brother Jyanough, to whom he had been an object of the fondest love and most unbounded admiration; and who daily, as the evening closed, took fresh food and water to the grave, and sat there till night closed in, calling on Uncas, and listening for his coming footsteps.  Then he retired sadly to his wigwam, to lament his brother’s continued absence, and to hope for better success the following evening.  During each night the dogs of the village, or the wild animals of the forest, devoured the food designed for Uncas; but Jyanough believed it had been used by his brother’s spirit, and continued still to renew the store, and to hope that, at length, the departed would show himself, and would return to dwell in his wigwam.

When Haunch approached the grave, leading Oriana’s pony, the mourner looked up, and gazed in his face again with that sad and inquiring look.  But now it did not change to disappointment, for he knew that the stranger was not Uncas.  There was even pleasure in his countenance as the clear glance of the English boy’s deep blue eye met his own; and he rose from his seat at the head of the grave, and, going up to Henrich, gently took his hand, and said—­

’Will the white stranger be Jyanough’s brother?  His step is free, and his eyes are bright, and his glance goes deep into Jyanough’s heart.  Will the pale-face be the friend of him who has now no friend; for four moons are guile and Uncas does not answer to my call?’

Henrich and Jyanough were strangers:  they were altogether different in race, in education, and in their mode of thinking and feeling.  Yet there was one ground of sympathy between them, of which the young Indian seemed instinctively conscious.  Both had recently known deep sorrow; and both had felt that sickening sense of loneliness that falls on the young heart when suddenly divided from all it most dearly loves, by death or other circumstances.  Jyanough and his elder brother Uncas had been deprived of both their parents, not many months before the fatal disease broke out which had carried off so many victims amongst the Crees.  The orphan youths had then become all-in-all to each other, and their mutual attachment had excited the respect and admiration of the whole village, of which, at his father’s death, Uncas became the leading man.  Had he lived his brother would have assisted him in the government and direction of that portion of the tribe but when he fell before the desolating pestilence, Jyanough was too young and inexperienced to be made Sachem, and the title was conferred on a warrior who was deemed more capable of supporting the dignity of the community.  Thenceforth the youth was alone in his wigwam.  He had no sister to under take its domestic duties, and no friend with whom it pleased him to dwell.  He saw something in Henrich’s countenance that promised sympathy, and he frankly demanded his friendship; and the open-hearted English boy did not refuse to bestow it on the young Indian.