Oriana listened to the mournful chant of the young widow with much interest and sympathy; but when she spoke of her love for her white brother, in terms so new and strange, she almost felt offended.  She did not, however, remark on her friend’s allusion to herself, but turned the discourse to Mailah’s sad prophecy of her own early death, which she knew could only be grounded on one of the wild superstitions of her race.

‘Why do you talk of dying, Mailah?’ she asked.  ’You are young and strong; and you may again be happy.  Why do you say you will leave your child, and go to the land of spirits?’

’The death-bird[*] called to me last night, as I sat at the open door of the hut, and looked at the moon, and thought how its soft light was guiding my Lincoya on long, long, journey, to the everlasting hunting fields of his fathers.  Cheepai-Peethees called me twice from the tree that hung over the lodge; but when I called to it again, and whistled clearly, it made no answer.  I heard it the day before the Crees destroyed our village.  It called my husband then, and would not answer him; and in two days he was slain.  The death-bird is never mistaken.’

[Footnote:  A small owl called Cheepai-Peethees, or the death-bird, which the Indians attach the superstition here alluded to, and believe, if it does not answer to their whistle, it denotes their speedy death.]

‘O, Mailah!’ replied the young Christian squaw, ’say not so.  Surely it is not thus that the great Mahneto calls His children to come to Him.  Once I believed all these Indian stories; but now I know that they are false and vain.  I know that our lives, and all things that befall us, are in the hands of the wise and good God—­the Mahneto of the Christians and of the red men too.  And now I have no fear of any of those strange sounds that used to make me sad, and terrify me with thoughts of coming evil.  I most teach you to believe as I do now:  or, rather, my white brother shall teach you; for he knows the words of Mahneto himself.  See, Mailah!  There my brother comes—­let us go to meet him.’

A flush of joy mounted to the clear olive cheek of Oriana as she said these words, and she sprang to her feet with the lightness of a fawn.  Mailah rose more gently, and replacing her infant in the pouch, slung it over her shoulder, and followed her friend, softly whispering in her ear, ‘The white stranger is your Lincoya.’

The Indian beauty smiled, and blushed more deeply:  but she did not bound across the glade to meet Henrich as she had purposed doing.  She drew her slender figure to its full height, and stood still; and as Henrich galloped across the green meadow, and alighted, full of animation, to tell her of his success in his first essay at hunting the elk, he wondered why she greeted him so coldly.