“If the pale-faces killed the Son of the Great Spirit,” said Bough of the Oak, pointedly, “we can see why they wish to drive the red men from their lands.  Evil spirits dwell in such men, and they do nothing but what is bad.  I am glad that our great chief has told us to put the foot on this worm and crush it, while yet the Indian foot is large enough to do it.  In a few winters they would kill us, as they killed the Spirit that did them nothing but good!”

“I am afraid that this mighty tradition hath a mystery in it that your Indian minds will scarcely be willing to receive,” resumed the missionary, earnestly.  “I would not, for a thousand worlds, or to save ten thousand lives as worthless as my own, place a straw in the way of the faith of any; yet must I tell the thing as it happened.  This Son of the Great Spirit was certainly killed by the Jews of that day, so far as he could be killed.  He possessed two natures, as indeed do all men:  the body and soul.  In his body he was man, as we all are men; in his soul he was a part of the Great Spirit himself.  This is the great mystery of our religion.  We cannot tell how it can happen, but we believe it.  We see around us a thousand things that we cannot understand, and this is one of them.”

Here Bear’s Meat availed himself of another pause to make a remark.  This he did with the keenness of one accustomed to watch words and events closely, but with a simplicity that showed no vulgar disposition to scepticism.

“We do not expect that all the Great Spirit does can be clear to us Indians,” he said.  “We know very little; he knows everything.  Why should we think to know all that he knows?  We do not.  That part of the tradition gives us no trouble.  Indians can believe without seeing.  They are not squaws, that wish to look behind every bush.  But my brother has told too much for his own good.  If the pale-faces killed their Great Spirit, they can have no Manitou, and must be in the hands of the Evil Spirit This is the reason they want our hunting-grounds.  I will not let them come any nearer to the setting sun.  It is time to begin to kill them, as they killed their Great Spirit.  The Jews did this.  My brother wishes us to think that red men are Jews!  No; red men never harmed the Son of the Great Spirit, They would receive him as a friend, and treat him as a chief.  Accursed be the hand that should be raised to harm him.  This tradition is a wise tradition.  It tells us many things.  It tells us that Injins are not Jews.  They never hurt the Son of the Great Spirit.  It tells us that the red men have always lived on these hunting-grounds, and did not come from toward the rising sun.  It tells us that pale-faces are not fit to live.  They are too wicked.  Let them die.”

“I would ask a question,” put in Peter.  “This tradition is not new.  I have heard it before.  It entered but a little way into my ears.  I did not think of it.  It has now entered deeper, and I wish to hear more.  Why did not the Son of the Great Spirit kill the Jews?—­why did he let the Jews kill him?  Will my brother say?”