looking up mischievously into his face as she spoke.

"Ah! you gipsey, you have the advantage of me; but if I mistake not, what I shall now communicate, will dissipate the witching smile from that lip and bring a cloud to your fair brow."

Clarence, you really startle me. Have you any thing serious to speak of? Had I supposed it, I certainly should not have met you with such frivolity."

"Yes, Helen, I have something serious to tell, but nothing to alarm you, merely a separation of a few months." The sunny look instantly left the face of Helen; and her cheek grew pale beneath the moonlight; but she spoke up resolutely, as if determined to face the danger, if not too appalling, and responded, "Whither do you go, and for what purpose?"

"I have engaged as clerk to the North West American Fur Company, for a year, and am to depart on the morrow for the upper lake country." He would have proceeded, but the look of pain that passed over Helen's countenance arrested his attention, and he quickly added, "Dear girl, do not look so troubled, it is but a small undertaking, and a year will soon pass, and then for a re-union that will be broken in upon no more." He took her hand as he spoke, expecting to see her look up with her confident assenting smile; but she continued with her eyes bent upon the bosom of the lake, and her face gradually grew paler, until she looked white as the moonlight. After a long silence, she replied, "Clarence, this undertaking is fraught with danger, great danger; relinquish it."

"Why, no, Helen, the danger is trifling, absolutely nothing at all; and it will not only be of great advantage to me, in acquainting me with the western country, and the aboriginal inhabitants, but the separation will teach me the value of your dear society, which I might not otherwise be able to appreciate. Come, cheer up; there is nothing to fear."

"Clarence," answered she, turning her large dark eyes full upon him; "I feel the power of prophecy upon me to-night, and I say, do not go. It is dangerous, highly so, to your personal safety, and fatal to your attachments and earlier engagements."

you

"Helen," said Clarence, in an agitated voice, seizing both her hands at the same time, " surely do not mean that I can prove recreant, as a son and brother; false to the dear being who has entrusted me with the keeping of her happiness."

66

"O no, Clarence, not that; but I have read of the dangers that beset the path of the Indian trader. I have read how his wild life weaves about him a web of enchantment, from which it is difficult, nay, almost impossible, to break. Many a one has gone from home with just as strong ties, just as strong inducements to return, as has Clarence Nelson; yet never set foot again upon his native shores, finding it easier to break all early ties than to tear himself from his life of freedom and romance. Pray do not go, Clarence, I know evil will come of it."

"Pardon me, Helen, if I must smile at your enthusiasm in this matter. I will not chide you for a tender solicitude that is to me too flattering; but I entreat you, dismiss your fears, and let us enjoy the remaining moments of our interview in talking of the joy in store for us on my return. I doubt not you will expect a fine collection of gay ornaments, such as brooches and mocassins, for the adornment of your most beautiful self."

"Helen could not help smiling at his allusion; but it was so sad a smile that it made the heart of her lover ache to look at her. She replied, "Beware you do not bestow them upon a maiden with a swarthier cheek, and lighter tread, than Helen Hyde's. Such things have happened."

"And do you really think," said he, drawing her to him until her head rested on his shoulder, while his lips sought her marble forehead; "do you think that earth holds a form that could make me regard Helen otherwise than as the dearest object of my heart had centred its hopes upon? O trust me, Helen, do not let me depart with the bitter thought that you do not confide in my love, my honor fully."

"I do, Clarence, I do. I believe you good and noble. 'Tis only the irresistible influences I speak of that can affect you, and perhaps you will be proof against those. I will try to think so; and may Heaven grant I be not disappointed."

He held her hand as she spoke, and drawing from her finger a beautiful gold ring, the gift of her mother, he remarked, "Let this be the talisman, the visible charm that shall hold me to my vow. Let it be the emblem of my truth; and may both in my possession never be tarnished. Meantime allow me to place a sentry over the actions of my dear Helen. She, too, may need a monitor to help her to her duty. Let this little image remind her, sometimes, that all her thoughts should not be given to those

around her; but that one far away would claim an occasional reflection." As he spoke he threw about her neck a heavy gold chain, with a locket attached to it. Opening it with a trembling hand, Helen gazed upon the face of Clarence Nelson, and seemed to forget that she could have indulged one fear for his faithfulness.

"Clarence," exclaimed she, "I will believe that some good angel will watch over and shield you from the evil I have predicted. Go, I can entreat no longer. You will find me unchanged on your return. God grant your year may not prove a life-time." Rising, she added, "It is now growing late, and my courage may not endure long; let us part now." She presented her hand as she spoke, which Clarencetook, and passing his hand around her form, imprinted the first slight kiss upon her pale lips. "Let me find these lips, Helen, unrifled of that kiss on my return. Adieu."

He was gone as he spoke, and Helen entered her uncle's dwelling with a strange feeling at her heart, as if evil were coming that she could not define. We shall see presently how well she divined the result of this new determination.

CHAPTER III.

A BRIGHT and beautiful autumn evening was that on which our young hero took leave of A——, and turned his face westward. As he mounted the hill to the west of the village, over which his way led, he turned once more to look upon the beautiful hamlet, sleeping in the sweet light of the morning. As might be expected his eyes rested long on the noble mansion of Gen. B- ; and for years afterward, he was haunted by the vision of a white form, leaning from one of its upper windows, and a white 'kerchief waving momentarily towards him. True, he did not actually believe this to have been her very self, but none ever knew, for Helen was a wise, prudent girl, and no one could tell if she loved the young rover, by any outward demeanor of hers; and most nobly did she deport herself during the trying years that succeeded.

Nothing of moment occurred to Clarence on his journey. His voyage up the Lakes was boisterous and uninteresting. The gaieties, the splendid accommodations, and the world of animation and interest, that are met with on board even the ordinary lake steamer, at the present day, were wanting to the slow sail craft that traversed the Lakes in those early times. Ful

ton had failed to charter the sole navigation of the Hudson by steam; and no adventurer had yet brought the waters of the Lakes into subjec.. tion to steam power. Nothing but the wrecks of war vessels and ill rigged schooners, navigated those waters; and in one of the latter young Nelson embarked for the scene of his new enter. prise. He landed at Detroit to meet his employers, and receive full directions with reference to his employment; and having come into possession of them, sailed immediately for Mackinaw, the place where he was to be stationed.

Mackinaw, a well known trading port, is situated on an island of the same name, in the straits between Lakes Huron and Michigan. It is the site also of a military post, and is a place of much interest on several accounts. A garrison is continually stationed in the fort. The vessels all stop here on their trips round the Upper Lakes. The Indians come here, in vast numbers, every autumn, to obtain fire-arms, trinkets, and other articles, from the white trader; and here they are again seen in multitudes, each ensuing Spring, laden with furs to liquidate the debts contracted the previous fall.

It may easily be imagined that the hero of our story found himself vastly interested in so many new and strange exhibitions. The little village of Mackinaw, fronting the Lake, with its motley habitations, and sharp French roofs, presented to him an amusing spectacle, as he disembarked. The roughness of the country, the barren appearance of the soil, and the dwarfishness of the natural productions, showed themselves in strange contrast with the beautiful villages, rich loams, and waving forests, he had left in his native State. Scarcely was he behind the counter, after having been instructed in the peculiar nature of his duties, when the Indians began to swarm the island to lay in their store of winter goods. Hundreds of canoes arrived daily from the main-land, laden with red men, their squaws and papooses; and young Nelson, being obliged to converse with them by means of an interpreter, had plenty of leisure to observe them in their native costume and character. Here he behield a stately chief decked out in all the trickery of Indian warfare, with his bunch of eagle's feathers waving from the top of his scalp, and his bear's-claw collar about his neck, significant of his prowess, parading the beach with a step of conscious pride. A little apart, a young squaw was viewing her swarthy beauties, in the glassy mirror of the Bay, to satisfy herself of her ap

pearance, before entering the village to encounter the young sachems and warriors.

Though considerably debased by the wicked influences and introductions of the whites, the Indians at that time, possessed more of the true nobility that attaches itself to them in their primitive condition, than at present; and Clarence Nelson found much in them to admire, much to interest him. This singular scene continued for several weeks. Every day his store was crowded with Indians. Sachems, chiefs, warriors, squaws both ugly and beautiful, came daily to make purchases; and in observing their habits, learning their language, and becoming acquainted with his duties, he scarcely noted the flight of time, until the Winter set in, and the savages began to depart to their hunting grounds.

It had been to him a scene of wonderful excitement, and he had not grown weary of it at all. At last the Indians were all gone; and then to escape loneliness, an acquaintance with the officers of the garrison, and other traders, commenced. Convivialities and amusements followed, and thus the Winter passed equally pleasant. He had, it is true, often thought of home and his own dear Helen; but nothing like a longing to return, or impatience for the time to arrive, had occupied his mind. As the Spring opened, the Indians returned, with the furs which they had procured during the Winter, to pay their debts; and now the scene was far more exciting to Nelson; inasmuch as he had become acquainted with the habits of the Indians, had formed some personal acquaintances among them, and begun to speak their language with considerable facility.

The Spring passed in adjusting matters with the red men, and the Summer glided away swiftly, aided by the lively company of the officers of the fort, boating, hunting, fowling and the like; and Autumn had again arrived, before young Nelson began to realize that he had been there more than a brief month. He knew this was the time for his return-he knew he was expected by anxious hearts; and his own heart did, at times, yearn most fondly to clasp his betrothed to his bosom, and feel that they should part no more; but a burning desire to stay a little longer among the things that had appear

ed to him so

pleasant, possessed him; and he found it impossible to drive it from his mind. He pondered many schemes to bring about his desires. At one time he would go to New York, and uniting his destiny with that of Helen, take

her with him to the spot where he had experienced so many wild delights; but immediately another reflection would drive this from his mind. How could she, born and nurtured in the bosom of tenderness and luxury, watched by the most unremitting parental fondness, with no wish ungratified, no trouble unsoothed; how could she leave all these to dwell with him on a desolate island, the daily companion of soldiery and savages! It was not to be thought of; and so he concluded to write to her that he would remain one year more; saying how great would be the pecuniary benefit to him, as he could now embark in trade for himself, instead of being confined to a stipulated salary. One year, he was certain, would send him home with a fine capital to invest, in some lucrative business; and the finest furs of the North West should grace her beautiful form. Many a tender word was contained in that epistle, many a strong assurance of undying attachment; and he playfully ended by subscribing himself, not the familiar CLARENCE NELSON, that she was wont to see, at the conclusion of his letters, but the Ottawa cognomen, WAB-SHA-ASH, or the BLACK OTTER. HOW Helen received this, will be seen in after years. At present we shall follow our young hero in his course. Need we say that another year glided by in the same manner; and another; and another, until Clarence Nelson had become the most renowned trader of the North West, and had his trading posts established independently at Mackinaw, Grand Haven, Green Bay, Grand Rapids, and various other places about the Lakes, besides having posts away out on the St. Peter and other tributaries of the Mississippi.

Money rolled in like the ocean tides. He was idolized by the Indians; and the enchantments of his untrammeled life, grew daily more irresistible. The prophecy of Helen came, sometimes, across his mind, producing a thrill of pain; but from the moment when he declared to her his intention of remaining a second year, his promises had assumed a degree of lightness that ill accorded with his feelings at the time of their utterance. Alas! had he known more of the heart of high-souled woman, he would have avoided a future error. Ye, who have known something of the devotedness of woman's love, answer-Would not Helen Hyde have left the luxuriant home she enjoyed, and all its kindred delights, to have shared the fate of Clarence Nelson, had it been ten times more forbidding even than he had pictured it? I know what will be

the reply, and again I say, could he have known this, how different would be the story I am relating.

СНАРТЕR IV.

Ar the time of the opening of our story, and for many years subsequent to it, the Chippewa and Ottawa tribes of Indians owned much of the territory that now comprises the State of Michigan. Government was desirous of obtaining this; and the Indians, blind to their own interests, and in a great measure coerced by the injustice and oppression of the whites, were not averse to disposing of it. They therefore signified their intention to Government to treat with them on the subject; and having received a favorable answer, Clarence Nelson was chosen by the unanimous voice of the chiefs, to take charge of their interests, and see that they were not wronged in the treaty. Accordingly he proceeded to the City of Washington, having in charge thirty chiefs, dressed in their native costumes. They passed through the country unmolested, and within a short day's journey of Nelson's old home and the scene of his earlier endearments; but he had lost, in a great measure, his ardent attachments; and the lapse of near twenty years had so changed his personal appearance, that no one recognized him. He passed, therefore, within a short distance of the home of Helen; and if he thought of her, it was to stifle the thought the next instant, with the energy of despair. This was a time, it would seem, when he might have re-visited the scenes of his childhood, when he might have atoned in part for his estrangement; but he knew he could not do this; he knew the predictions of Helen had proved too true; and though he was brave in the perils of warfare, he could never meet his father's eye of reproach, or the mild, sad glance of Helen Hyde. And so he passed on. His business completed, he hurried back with the band of savages into the wild scenes of the West; and to those scenes we will follow him.

All parties were satisfied. The treaty was concluded, and the Indians gave up their hunting grounds forever, in consideration of certain sums of money which they should receive, at a certain time, from the hands of agents appointed by Government. Clarence Nelson was one of those appointed to this office; and we will do him the justice to say, that he dealt with the poor Indian after the golden rule. It was the design of those agents mostly to pay off the

tribes, as far as possible, in articles of entire uselessness, if not absolute injury, and retain in their own hands the money which was their lawful due. This, Nelson prevented, as much as lay in his power. He had great influence with the Indians, and he used it all to persuade them to leave untouched the fire-water and other useless and dangerous things, and to receive only what they were entitled to-the honest pay for their lands. He succeeded in a great measure; but in spite of all his efforts much blame lies at the threshold of Government in that transaction. The time appointed for the payment of this debt, was the autumn of 184—; and Mackinaw was designated as the rendezvous of the tribes.

The

Mackinaw never presented a scene of greater excitement. From the top of the fort the "stars and stripes" waved continually. The garrison daily paraded the streets, in full military dress, to the stirring notes of the fife and drum. tents or lodges of five thousand red men, lined the shore, while the Indians thronged the village in true savage regalia, eating, drinking and amusing themselves in various ways, some of an innocent nature, others of the most degrading kind. Along the shore were moored their canoes of all sorts and size, some of birch bark ; others made from the trunk of a tree, hollowed to an extreme thinness to render them easy of transportation from one stream to another, a common practice among the Indian tribes. Some of their canoes were gaily painted, and decked with rude finery; and as they lay along the shore of the bay, moored side by side, the appearance they presented was extremly novel. Occasionally a young redskin would leap into one, and loosing the fastenings, shoot out upon the placid bay with the fleetness of a bird, and as quickly return to the shore, while other young ones amused themselves and the spectators, by diving from the pier into the deep water to obtain pennies, which were thrown there purposely by the white bystanders, to induce them to show their skill in diving.

Beautiful young squaws mingled with the crowds, dressed in their gayest attire, bearing upon their black hair innumerable brooches, and having their dress, leggins and mocassins, elaborately ornamented with quills of the porcupine, curiously wrought, and various colored beads, specimens of their own rnde skill; not at all times so rude, however; as they often exhibited considerable taste and contrivance in the plan, and much neatness in the execution. They

were ready to receive the compliments of the soldiery, and evidently showed they were not insensible to the love of admiration, or entirely free from the coquetry charged upon ladies of a paler hue.

Amid this scene of apparent confusion, Clarence Nelson moved as the most influential of the whites. For more than twenty years had he been in daily communication with those dark sons of the forest, and they felt a reverence towards him bordering on that which they gave their “Manitou." He was consulted on all matters of importance, and he endeavored to do them full justice. It may be the pangs inflicted by the deep wrong he had committed in his early life, and which we have glanced at, secured him against perpetrating others. At all events he pursued, contrary to the practice of the other agents, a course of rigid integrity with the untutored savages; and this so added to their love and respect, that, at the conclusion of the affair, they made him a present of a large tract of land which he disposed of to Government for the considerable sum of thirty thousand dollars. As this was a matter of importance, the chiefs gathered in council, at the going down of the sun, one beautiful day near the close of the Autumn, and having invited Wab-sha-ash and other traders to a seat among them, Wau-sha-ra or Walking Thunder, the most renowned warrior and sachem of the Ottawas, thus addressed the Black Otter:

66

Wab-sha-ash, the Red Men of the Ottawas, have invited the white trader to a seat in their council, to talk to him of the many good things he has done for them since he came among them, and to show their love to him in return. More than three hundred moons ago, when Wau-sha-ra was but a young warrior and had taken but few scalps, he remembers a young pale-face came among his people to trade with them like other pale-faces for their furs and skins. He has been with them every moon since, and no man of the Ottawas has a wrong to lay at the door of the lodge of Wab-sha-ash. He has given us all that belonged to us; he has been a brother to the red man; and he has been good to the "Running Brook" that sleeps in his lodge. We will now give him a proof of our love, and will make him a gift of the beautiful hunting grounds for a great distance around the mouth of the Wa-be-shu. Let him receive this as a token of the great love the Ottawas have for the Black Otter, and let him never return VOL. XX. 30

from the lodge of Wau-sha-ra, till he goes to the happy hunting-grounds. When the Great Spirit was angry with Ni-gik-qua, the son of Wausha-ra, and stirred up the black waters of the Saginaw against him, till his canoe was upset in the deep waves, did not the Black Otter dive into the white foam and bring Ni-gik-qua alive from the dark waters? And when the grizzly bear stuck his sharp claws into the breast of the great sachem, We-sin-is-see, and would quickly have sent him into the fields where the brave warriors have gone, who but Wab-sha-ash struck the angry beast dead at the feet of Wau-sha-ra, and saved alive the great sachem We-sin-is-see? Brothers of the Ottawas, let these never be forgotten; let there be always a place in your lodge, a mouthful of venison, for the Black Otter; and let him never forget his red brothers. Wau-shara speaks no more."

A murmur of applause ran through the Council; and after Wab-sha-ash had made a suitable reply, accepting the gift of the chief, a thing which must be done to secure their good will, the Council broke up, and the Indians returned to their lodges to make ready their departure on the morrow. Nelson entered his trading house, but not to retire to rest. The events of the evening had discomposed him; a cord that had lain dormant had been struck, and its vibrations were so melancholy that he listened to its music with a wild pain at his head. These untutored sons of the forest had recognized in him the principle of justice, and had paid their homage to it in gifts and professions of life-long love and gratitude. 'Tis true he could not recall an instance in which he had wronged or deceived them; but not thus had he dealt with all. A beautiful young face came up before him, full of life and happiness; he beheld his own image reflected from the clear depths of its soft black eyes; and he almost felt the flutterings of a buoyant young heart at his side. He looked until the veil of disappointment shaded that fine face, and listened until the throbbings of hope died from that light heart, and in their stead he heard the solemn measured march of despair. He found himself restless and unhappy; and taking his hat walked out and ascended the bluff on which the fort is situated. It was just such a night as that on which his last words were exchanged with Helen. The moonbeams rested lovingly upon the smooth waters of the bay before him, dotted with canoes; and the short ejaculations of the savages, ever and anon, came to his ear mingled with their rude ditties. At his right