sassin. But they have their dangers, Rayner; and I would protect you against them. Take them; I promised you should be my heir. Take them, but not to play them. Keep them in your eyes as an omen. Show them to your children as a warning. Tell them what I have told you; and while you familiarize their eyes with their forms, familiarize their hearts with their dangers. There! do not lose sight of them. Leave me now. You see I am at the bottom of my box.'

Farewell!

"He thrust the cards into my hands, and as he spoke, he drew out his little silver box, and took from it the only pill which remained. This he swallowed, and then handed me the box also. I refused to take it. 'Pshaw' said he, why not? your refusal to take it can have no effect on my determination! Take it and leave me!' But I still refused. He turned from me, saying: 'You're a foolish fellow, Rayner;' and walked down the road leading to the river. I followed him closely. He turned half round, once or twice, muttered and seemed discontented. I still kept close with him, and began to expostulate. But he interrupted me fiercely; and I now perceived that his eyes began to glisten and to glare very wildly. It had not escaped my observation, that the last pill which he had taken was greatly larger than any he had used before; and I then remembered, that before the marriage ceremony was performed, on the previous night, he had opened the box more than once, in my presence, and I noted that it contained a good many. By this time we reached the banks of the river. He turned full upon me. 'Rayner,' said he, 'you're a good fellow, but you must go home to your wife.'-'It's impossible,' said I, 'to leave you.' We'll, see to that,' said he, and he turned towards the river. I took it for certain he was going to plunge in, and I jumped forward to seize him, but, just as my arms were extended to embrace him, he wheeled about and clapped a pistol to my head. I started back, quickly enough, as you may suppose; and he exclaimed-' Ah! Rayner, you are a good fellow, but you cannot prevent the journey. Farewell!' With these words he flung me the pistol, which I afterwards found was unloaded, and, before I could speak or think, he sprang from the bluff into the stream. It appeared to me as if I heard the splash before I saw the motion.

I ran up

the bluff where he had stood, as soon as I could recover myself, and saw where the water-rings were spreading in great circles where he had gone down. I didn't give myself a moment after that. I could swim like a duck and dive like a serpent, and had no fear of the water for myself; so in I jumped, and fished about as long as I could stand it underneath; but I could find nothing of him. He had given himself up to the currents so entirely, that they whirled him out of sight in a minute. When I rose and got to the shore, I saw his hat floating among some bushes on the other shore. But as for poor Mr. Eckhardt, he was gone, sure enough, upon his last journey!

"You see our little family. The boy is very much like him in looks, and I reckon in understanding. He's very thoughtful and smart. We are happy, stranger, and I don't believe that Mr. Eckhardt was wrong in his notion that I would make Rachel happy. She tells me she is, and it makes me happy to believe her. It makes her sad to see the cards, and sad to hear of them, but she thinks it best for our boy that he should hear the story and learn it all by heart; and that makes her patient, and patience brings a sort of peace along with it that's pretty much like happiness. I could tell you more, my friend, but it's not needful, and your eyes look as if they had kept open long enough for one sitting. So come with me, and let me show you where you are to lie down!"

These words roused me! I half suspect that I was drowsing in my chair. I can hardly suppose, dear reader, that you could be capable of an act of like forgetfulness.

THE ARM-CHAIR OF TUSTENUGGEE.

A TRADITION OF THE CATAWBA.

CHAPTER I.

THE windy month had set in, the leaves were falling, and the lightfooted hunters of Catawba, set forth upon the chase. Little groups went off in every direction, and before two weeks had elapsed from the beginning of the campaign, the whole nation was broken up into parties, each under the guidance of an individual warrior. The course of the several hunting bands was taken according to the tastes or habits of these leaders. Some of the Indians were famous for their skill in hunting the otter, could swim as long with head under water as himself, and be not far from his haunches, when he emerged to breathe. These followed the course of shallow waters and swamps, and thick, dense bays, in which it was known that he found his favourite haunts. The bear hunter pushed for the cane brakes and the bee trees; and woe to the black bear whom he encountered with his paws full of honeycomb, which he was unwilling to leave behind him. The active warrior took his way towards the hills, seeking for the brown wolf and the deer; and, if the truth were known, smiled with wholesale contempt at the more timorous who desired less adventurous triumphs. Many set forth in couples only, avoiding with care all the clamorous of the tribe; and some few, the more surly or successful-the inveterate bachelors of the nation-were content to make their forward progress alone. The old men prepared their traps and nets, the boys their blow guns, and followed with the squaws slowly, according to the division made by the hunters among themselves. They carried the blankets and bread

stuffs, and camped nightly in noted places, to which, according to previous arrangement, the hunters might repair at evening and bring their game. In this way, some of the tribes followed the course of the Catawba, even to its source. Others darted off towards the Pacolet and Broad rivers, and there were some, the most daring and swift of foot, who made nothing of a journey to the Tiger river, and the rolling mountains of Spartanburg. There were two warriors who pursued this course. One of them was named Conattee, and a braver man and more fortunate hunter never lived. But he had a wife who was a greater scold than Xantippe. She was the wonder and the terror of the tribe, and quite as ugly as the one-eyed squaw of Tustenuggee, the grey demon of Enoree. Her tongue was the signal for “slinking," among the bold hunters of Turkey-town; and when they heard it, "now," said the young women, who sympathised, as all proper young women will do, with the handsome husband of an ugly wife, "now," said they, we know that poor Conattee has come home." The return of the husband, particularly if he brought no game, was sure to be followed by a storm of that "dry thunder," so well known, which never failed to be heard at the farthest end of the village.

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The companion of Conattee on the present expedition was named Selonee one of the handsomest lads in the whole nation. He was tall and straight like a pine tree; had proved his skill and courage in several expeditions against the Chowannee red sticks, and had found no young warriors of the Cherokee, though he had been on the war path against them and had stricken all their posts, who could circumvent him in stratagem or conquer him in actual blows. His renown as a hunter was not less great. He had put to shame the best wolf-takers of the tribe, and the lodge of his venerable father, Chifonti, was never without meat. no good reason why Conattee, the married man, should be so intimate with Selonee, the single-there was no particular sympathy between the two; but, thrown together in sundry expeditions, they had formed an intimacy, which, strange to say, was neither denounced nor discouraged by the virago wife of the former. She who approved of but few of her husband's movements, and still fewer of his friends and fellowships, forbore all her reproaches

There was

when Selonee was his companion. She was the meekest, gentlest, sweetest tempered of all wives whenever the young hunter came home with her husband; and he, poor man, was consequently, never so well satisfied as when he brought Selonee with him. It was on such occasions, only, that the poor Conattee could persuade himself to regard Macourah as a tolerable personage. How he came to marry such a creature—such a termagant, and so monstrous ugly-was a mystery which none of the damsels of Catawba could elucidate, though the subject was one on which, when mending the young hunter's mocasins, they expended no small quantity of conjecture. Conattee, we may be permitted to say, was still quite popular among them, in spite of his bad taste, and manifest unavailableness; possibly, for the very reason that his wife was universally detested; and it will, perhaps, speak something for their charity, if we pry no deeper into their motives, to say that the wish was universal among them that the Opitchi Manneyto, or Black Devil of their belief, would take the virago to himself, and leave to the poor Conattee some reasonable hope of being made happy by a more indulgent spouse.