“Bourdon, it is pleasant to me to look forward.  It is not pleasant to me to look back.  I see how many things I have done in one way, that ought to have been done in another way.  I feel sorry, and wish it had not been so.  Then I hear the Son of the Manitou asking His Father, who liveth above the clouds, to do good to the Jews who took his life.  I do not think Injins are Jews.  In this, my brother was wrong.  It was his own notion, and it is easy for a man to think wrong.  It is not so with the Son of the Manitou.  He thinketh always as His Father thinketh, which is right.

“Bourdon, I am no longer Peter—­I must be another Injin.  I do not feel the same.  A scalp is a terrible thing in my eyes—­I wish never to take another—­never to see another—­a scalp is a bad thing.  I now love the Yankees.  I wish to do them good, and not to do them harm.  I love most the Great Spirit, that let his own Son die for all men.  The medicine-priest said he died for Injins, as well as for pale-faces.  This we did not know, or we should have talked of him more in our traditions.  We love to talk of good acts.  But we are such ignorant Injins!  The Son of the Manitou will have pity on us, and tell us oftener what we ought to do.  In time, we shall learn.  Now, I feel like a child:  I hope I shall one day be a man.”

Having made this “confession of faith,” one that would have done credit to a Christian church, Peter shook the bee-hunter kindly by the hand, and took his departure.  He did not walk into the swamp, though it was practicable with sufficient care, but he stepped into the river, and followed its margin, knowing that “water leaves no trail.”  Nor did Peter follow the direct route toward the now blazing hut, the smoke from which was rising high above the trees, but he ascended the stream, until reaching a favorable spot, he threw aside all of his light dress, made it into a bundle, and swam across the Kalamazoo, holding his clothes above the element with one hand.  On reaching the opposite shore, he moved on to the upper margin of the swamp, where he resumed his clothes.  Then he issued into the Openings, carrying neither rifle, bow, tomahawk, nor knife.  All his weapons he had left in his canoe, fearful that they might tempt him to do evil, instead of good, to his enemies.  Neither Bear’s Meat, nor Bough of the Oak, was yet regarded by Peter with the eye of love.  He tried not to hate them, and this he found sufficiently difficult; conscious of this difficulty, he had laid aside his arms, accordingly.  This mighty change had been gradually in progress, ever since the chief’s close communication with Margery, but it had received its consummation in the last acts, and last words, of the missionary!