Yes, it has been given to me to make
this important discovery, though I sometimes think that Peter
himself is really as ignorant as all around him of the tribe to
which he properly belongs."
"Do you wish to keep it a secret from me, too? I own that, in my
eyes, the tribe of a red-skin goes a good way in making up my
opinions of the man. Is he a Winnebagoe?"
"No, my friend, the Winnebagoes have no claims on him at all."
"Nor a Pottawattamie, Ottawa, or Ojebway of any sort?"
"He is none of these. Peter cometh of a nobler tribe than any that
beareth such names."
"Perhaps he is an Injin of the Six Nations? They tell me that many
such have found their way hither since the war of the revolution."
"All that may be true, but Peter cometh not of Pottawattamie,
Ottawa, nor Ojebway."
"He can hardly be of the Sacs or the Foxes; he has not the
appearance of an Injin from a region so far west"
"Neither, neither, neither," answered Parson Amen, now so full of
his secret as fairly to let it overflow. "Peter is a son of Israel;
one of the lost children of the land of Judea, in common with many
of his red brethren-mind, I do not say ALL, but with MANY of his red
brethren--though he may not know exactly of what tribe himself.
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