AN OLD INDIAN AND HIS DAUGHTER. 85 



was in keeping. Even his dog was a mixture of the 

 wolf and dog, and was the quickest creature I ever 

 saw move. Poor old man, he will scarcely stand 

 another winter, I fear — and some lonely night, in the 

 lonely forest, that dark-skinned maiden will see him 

 die, far from human habitations ; and her feeble arm 

 will carry his corpse many a weary mile, to rest 

 among his friends. As I have seen her decked out 

 with water-lilies, paddling that old man over the lake, 

 I have sighed over her fate. She seems wrapped up 

 in her father, and to have but one thought, one pur- 

 pose of life — the guarding and nursing of her feeble 

 parent. The night that sees her sitting alone by the 

 camp-fire beside her dead parent will witness a grief 

 as intense and desolate as ever visited a more cult;i- 

 vated bosom. God help her in that dark hour. I 

 can conceive of no sadder sight than that forsaken 

 maiden, in some tempestuous night, sitting all alone 

 in the heart of the boundless forest, holding the dead 

 or dying head of her father, while the moaning winds 

 sing his dirge, and the flickering fire sheds a ghastly 

 light on the scene. Sorrow in the midst of a wilder- 

 ness seems doubly desolate. 



How strong is habit. That old man cannot be per- 

 suaded to sit down in peace beneath a quiet roof, mi- 

 nistered to and cherished as his wants require, but still 

 clings to his wandering life, and endures hunger, cold 

 and fatigue, and wanders houseless and homeless. 

 He still hunts, though his shot seldom strikes down a 

 deer ; and he still treads the forest, though his trem- 

 bling limbs but half fulfil their ofiice, and his aged 



