change. They wished to press on, ever on, to let nothing stop the progress of their march. It is said that when they came to this sea there were seven brothers who, when their people would no longer follow, launched their canoes and set off once more to the eastward, and never came back.

"They dwell there in the sky, we think, and they shine through those months of autumn that are dearest of all the year to our people, when the days are warm and golden before the winter, when the woods are bare and hunting is easy, when the game is fat from the summer grazing and our yellow corn is ripe. They come back to us in the Hunter's Moon and they watch over us all through the cold winter. We call them the Seven Brothers of the Sun."

Nashola was silent, waiting, for he knew from his friend's voice that there was more that he wished to say.

"Your mother, who is dead, was not of our blood, they tell me. Your father took her from another tribe and they had brought her captive, from the north of us, so that she is no kin of ours. Sometimes I think that there must have run in her veins the blood of those seven brothers and that, in you, their bold spirit lives again. There is no one of your kind who loves the sea as you do, who has no shadow of a fear of it. And you are first, in all my life, who has asked me what lay beyond."

"I should like," said Nashola steadily, still watching the gray water and the gleam of stars above it, "I should like to go and see."

"Often I have wondered," the man went on, his voice growing very earnest, "whether you would not like to come to dwell with me, to learn the lore that makes me a medicine man and to take my place when I must go. I, who was taught by the wisest of us all, have waited long to find some one worthy of that teaching, and able to hold the power that I have. You can be a greater man than I, Nashola; not only your whole tribe will do your bidding and hang upon your words, but the men of our race all up and down the coast will revere you and talk of you as the greatest sorcerer ever known. Will you come to my lodge, will you learn from me, will you follow in my way?"

Nashola tried to speak, choked and tried again.

"I cannot do it," he said huskily.

"Why?"

There was a sharp note of wonder, hurt friendship, even of terror, in the man's voice.

"The people of our village say you are not like other men," said the boy. "They say you can call the friendly spirits of the forest and the hostile gods of the sea, and that you have wisdom learned in another world. But I, who am your friend, think it is not so. I love you dearly, but I know you are a man as I am. I know the sea is only water and that the forest is only trees. I—I do not believe."

He got to his feet, blind with misery, and went stumbling down the hill. The warm September darkness was thick about him, but up on the hill the starlight showed plainly the motionless figure sitting beneath the oak tree, never turning to look after him, uttering no sound of protest or reproach.

As September days passed into October, as the Seven Brothers rode higher in the sky, strange tales, once again, began to come from the south. More white men had been seen in their ships, sailing up and down the coast, trading with the Indians, buying the fish that they had caught and trying to talk to them in an unknown tongue.

"We have heard stories before and will hear them again," said the older warriors incredulously. "Such tales are of the sort that old women tell about the fires on winter nights."

"What does your friend the medicine man say of these rumors, Nashola?" asked one of the boys of his own age, but Nashola did not answer. He went no more up the hill to the big oak tree; he had held no speech for weeks with Secotan. Yet he would suffer no one to ask him why.

A day came when the news could no longer be disbelieved. A boy of the tribe, who had been digging for clams on the beach, came running home with startling tidings.

"The white men—the winged canoes—as big as our lodges——" he gasped. "Come quickly and see!"

Old men and young, squaws and papooses, every one deserted the little settlement by the river and went in wild haste up the eastward hills to look upon this strange wonder. It was a lowering day with overcast skies and water of a sullen gray and with ominously little wind. In speechless wonder the Indians stood gazing, for there indeed were three white-sailed ships, moving slowly before the lazy breeze, stanch little fishing vessels of English build, come to see whether this unexplored stretch of coast would yield them any cargo. As they watched, the largest one got up more sail, veered away upon a new tack, and was followed by the others.

"What can they be? Are they come to destroy us all?" asked a trembling old woman, and no one could answer.

"Hush," said another in a moment, "the medicine man is coming."

Secotan, who so seldom left his own lodge now, and who never mixed with the village folk, was climbing slowly up the hill after them. Nashola noticed that he had begun to look old, that his fierce hawk's face was sunken, and that he walked very slowly, leaning upon his staff. The men and women drew back respectfully as he advanced and stood in a silent, waiting circle, while he shaded his eyes and gazed long at the ships, now growing smaller in the distance.

"Are they friends or enemies, Secotan?" one of the hunters ventured to ask, but the medicine man replied only:

"That must be as the gods decree."

"Then destroy them for us," cried the old squaw, Nashola's grandmother. "Call up a storm that will break their wings and shatter the sides of those giant canoes. Bring wind and rain and thunder and all the spirits of the sea to overwhelm them."

There was a breathless silence as Secotan slowly moved forward and raised his staff. Nashola, standing before the other boys, watched the medicine man's face with eyes that never wavered. Even as the sorcerer moved there came a low mutter of thunder across the gray, level floor of the sea, and a distant streak of darker water showed the coming wind.

"There is the storm! The very winds obey him!"

The cry went up from all the Indians, save only Nashola who stood silent. The medicine man turned to look at him, then hesitated and dropped his eyes.

"Why do you wait? Raise up a hurricane, O greatest of sorcerers," cried a man behind them.

"No," shouted Secotan suddenly. He flung down his staff and held up his empty hands before his face. "I will raise no storm," he cried, "I will call no spirits from the deep—because I cannot. The wind and thunder answer no man's bidding—storms come and go at the will of the Great Spirit alone. There is one soul here that I love, one being whom, in all my life, I have had for a friend. In his eyes I will stand for truth at last, although I had almost learned to believe in my magic myself. I can do none of those things that you think. I am a man without power, like every one of you!"

A roar of anger went up, a dull, savage, guttural sound that died away almost at once into silence, a quiet more ominous than an outcry could have been. Terrified by that strange apparition out yonder upon the waters, the Indians saw themselves deserted by the one person to whom they could look for courage and counsel. Only half understanding, they knew, at least, that Nashola had been the means of their medicine man's downfall. Frenzied hands seized them both and dragged them headlong down toward the water. Visions of the savage tortures that his people wreaked upon their enemies passed through the boy's mind, but he did not struggle or cry out, although Secotan's