he induce him to aid his design, it could be easy of execution.  He would make the trial.  He would approach him with offerings, and acquaint him with his wishes.  The Genius of the Fall ought not to love the white man.  The pale faces never offered him gifts, while the red men, long before the arrival of the fatal stranger and since, had covered the shores with presents.  He would not be disregardful or turn a deaf ear to one of his children who sought a just revenge.

Animated by these considerations and such hopes, Ohquamehud left the hut of Esther on the afternoon of the following day, to propitiate the Manito of the Falls.  His way led through the wood, along the margin of the Severn for a few miles and then crossed the high-road and some open fields and another belt of woods, before he reached the Yaupaae.  Arrived at his destination, he looked with a solemn air around as if half expecting to see the Genius of the place.  But he beheld nothing, save the wild features of nature, and the moss-grown roof of the old mill, almost hid by the intervening trees:  he heard no sound except the uninterrupted roaring of the torrent.  In the hot rays of that June sun, not even the birds emitted a note, waiting under their leafy shelters in the darkest recesses of the woods, until the pleasant coolness of approaching evening should tempt them out and reawaken their songs.  The Indian, seeing that no one was in sight, commenced collecting brush and sticks of dry wood that lay about, which he heaped up into a pile upon a rock close to the water’s edge.  After he had gathered together a quantity that appeared to him sufficient, he selected from the stones lying around, a couple of flints which seemed fittest for his purpose, and by striking them violently together, soon succeeded in producing a shower of sparks, which falling on the thoroughly dried and combustible matter, instantly set it on fire, and shot a tongue of flame into the air.  Reverently then inclining his body towards the cataract, as in an attitude of supplication, Ohquamehud addressed the Manito, and explained his wishes.  He spoke with dignity, as one who, though standing in the presence of a superior, was not unmindful of his own worth.  The sounds at first were those of lamentation, so low as scarcely to be audible, and plaintive and sweet as the sighs of the wind through the curled conch shell.  “Oh Manito,” he said, “where are thy children, once as plenty as the forest leaves?  Ask of the month of flowers for the snows that ’Hpoon scatters from his hand, or of the Yaupaae for the streams he pours into the great Salt Lake.  The sick-skinned stranger, with hair like the curls of the vine, came from the rising sun.  He was weak as a little child:  he shivered with the cold:  he was perishing with hunger.  The red man was strong:  he wrapped himself in bear skins and was warm; he built his wigwam of bark, and defied the storm, and meat was plenty in his pot.  He pitied the dying stranger; he brought him on his back out of the snow,