The lamp of life flickered without becoming
extinguished. On the morning of the day, on which Middleton arrived,
there was a general reviving of the powers of the whole man. His
tongue was again heard in wholesome maxims, and his eye from time to
time recognised the persons of his friends. It merely proved to be a
brief and final intercourse with the world on the part of one, who had
already been considered, as to mental communion, to have taken his
leave of it for ever.
When he had placed his guests in front of the dying man, Hard-Heart,
after a pause, that proceeded as much from sorrow as decorum, leaned a
little forward and demanded--
"Does my father hear the words of his son?"
"Speak," returned the trapper, in tones that issued from his chest,
but which were rendered awfully distinct by the stillness that reigned
in the place. "I am about to depart from the village of the Loups, and
shortly shall be beyond the reach of your voice."
"Let the wise chief have no cares for his journey," continued Hard-
Heart with an earnest solicitude, that led him to forget, for the
moment, that others were waiting to address his adopted parent; "a
hundred Loups shall clear his path from briars.
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