5. V.
From habit, at length, it came to Logoochie to
serve, with kind offices, the white settlers, just as
he had served the red men before him. He soon
saw that, in many respects, the people dwelling in
the woods, however different their color and origin,
must necessarily resemble one another. They
were in some particulars equally wild and equally
simple. He soon discovered, too, that however
much they might profess indifference to the superstitions
of the barbarous race they had superseded,
they were not a whit more secure from the occasional
tremors which followed his own practices or
presence. More than once had he marked the
fright of the young woodman, as, looking towards
nightfall over his left shoulder, he had beheld the
funny twinkling eyes, and the long slit mouth,
receding suddenly into the bush behind him. This
assured Logoochie of the possession still, even
with a new people, of some of that power which
he had exercised upon the old; and when he saw,
too, that the character of the white man was plain,
gentle, and unobtrusive, he came, after a brief study,
to like him also; though, certainly, in less
degree, than his Indian predecessors. From one
step of his acquaintance with the new comers to
another, Logoochie at length began to visit, at
stolen periods, and to prowl around the little cottage,
of the squatter; — sometimes playing tricks
upon his household, but more frequently employing
himself in the analysis of pursuits, and of a
character, as new almost to him as to the people
whose places they had assumed. Nor will this
seeming ignorance, on the part of Logoochie,
subtract a single jot from his high pretension as an
Indian god, since true philosophy and a deliberate
reason, must, long since, have been aware, that
the mythological rule of every people, has been
adapted, by the superior of all, to their mental
and physical condition; and the Great Manneyto
of the savage, in his primitive state, was, doubtless,
as wise a provision for him then, as, in our
time, has been the faith, which we proudly assume
to be the close correlative of the highest point of
moral liberty and social refinement.
