only in the way; his steps he does not know where to direct; his burdens he does not know how to choose; and he has to beg food of the squaws, instead of carrying it himself to their wigwams.  He has not learned how to take game.  We must all learn.  It is right.  When we have learned how to take game, and how to strike the enemy, and how to keep the wigwam filled, then we may learn traditions.  Traditions tell us of our fathers.  We have many traditions.  Some are talked of, even to the squaws.  Some are told around the fires of the tribes.  Some are known only to the aged chiefs.  This is right, too.  Injins ought not to say too much, nor too little.  They should say what is wise—­what is best.  But my brother, the medicine-man of the pale-faces, says that our traditions have not told us everything.  Something has been kept back.  If so, it is best to learn that too.  If we are Jews, and not Injins, we ought to know it.  If we are Injins, and not Jews, our brother ought to know it, and not call us by a wrong name.  Let him speak.  We listen.”

Here Peter slowly resumed his seat.  As the missionary understood all that had been said, he next arose, and proceeded to make good, as far as he was able, and in such language as his knowledge of Indian habits suggested, his theory of the lost tribes.

“I wish my children to understand,” resumed the missionary, “that it is an honor to be a Jew.  I have not come here to lessen the red men in their own eyes, but to do them honor.  I see that Bear’s Meat wishes to say something; my ears are open, and my tongue is still.”

“I thank my brother for the opportunity to say what is on my mind,” returned the chief mentioned.  “It is true I have something to say; it is this:  I wish to ask the medicine-man if the pale-faces honor and show respect to the Jews?”

This was rather an awkward question for the missionary, but he was much too honest to dissemble.  With a reverence for truth that proceeded from his reverence for the Father of all that is true, he replied honestly, though not altogether without betraying how much he regretted the necessity of answering at all.  Both remained standing while the dialogue proceeded; or in parliamentary language, each may be said to have had the floor at the same time.

“My brother wishes to know if the pale-faces honor the Jews,” returned the missionary.  “I wish I could answer ‘yes’; but the truth forces me to say ‘no.’  The pale-faces have traditions that make against the Jews, and the judgments of God weigh heavy on the children of Israel.  But all good Christians, now, look with friendly eyes on this dispersed and persecuted people, and wish them well.  It will give the white men very great pleasure to learn that I have found the lost tribes of Israel in the red men of America.”

“Will my brother tell us why this will give his people pleasure?  Is it because they will be glad to find old enemies, poor, living on narrow hunting-grounds, off which the villages and farms of the pale-faces begin to push them still nearer to the setting sun; and toward whom the small-pox has found a path to go, but none to come from?”