As for Peter, with the curse of ignorance weighing on his mind, it is to be presumed that he fancied his own great task of destroying the whites was so much the lighter, in consequence of the feeble defence of the Yankees at Detroit.  The runner was now questioned by the different chiefs for details, which he furnished with sufficient intelligence and distinctness.  The whole of that discreditable story is too prominent in history, and of too recent occurrence, to stand in need of repetition here.  When the runner had told his tale, the chiefs broke the order of their circle, to converse the more easily concerning the great events which had just occurred.  Some were not backward in letting their contempt for the “Yankees” be known.  Here were three of their strong places taken, in quick succession, and almost without a blow.  Detroit, the strongest of them all, and defended by an army, had fallen in a way to bring the blush to the American face, seemingly leaving the whole of the northwestern frontier of the country ravished from the red man, exposed to his incursions and depredations.

“What does my father think of this?” asked Bear’s Meat of Peter, as the two stood apart, in a cluster of some three or four of the principal personages present.  “Does the news make his heart stronger?”

“It is always strong when this business is before it.  The Manitou has long looked darkly upon the red men, but now his face brightens.  The cloud is passing from before his countenance, and we can begin again to see his smile.  It will be with our sons as it was with our fathers.  Our hunting-grounds will be our own, and the buffalo and deer will be plenty in our wigwams.  The fire-water will flow after them that brought it into the country, and the red man will once more be happy, as in times past!”

The ignis fatuus of human happiness employs all minds, all faculties, all pens, and all theories, just at this particular moment.  A thousand projects have been broached, will continue to be broached, and will fail, each in its time, showing the mistakes of men, without remedying the evils of which they complain.  This is not because a beneficent Providence has neglected to enlighten their minds, and to show them the way to be happy, here and hereafter; but because human conceit runs, pari passu, with human woes, and we are too proud to look for our lessons of conduct, in that code in which they have been set before us by unerring wisdom and ceaseless love.  If the political economists, and reformers, and revolutionists of the age, would turn from their speculations to those familiar precepts which all are taught and so few obey, they would find rules for every emergency; and, most of all, would they learn the great secret which lies so profoundly hid from them and their philosophy, in the contented mind.  Nothing short of this will ever bring the mighty reform that the world needs.  The press may be declared free, but a very brief experience