lost ideal to haunt the paths of beings of a higher plane.

The picture was before the eyes of all the fireside group,--the looming
domes of the Great Smoky Mountains, where the clouds, white and opaline,
hung in the intervals beneath the ultimate heights; the silences of the
night were felt in the dense dark lonely forest that encompassed the
open spaces of that mysterious city, with the conical thatched roofs of
its winter houses and the sandy stretch of the "beloved square; "--and
there was the line of bears, clumsy, heavy-footed, lumbering, ungainly,
and beside each the feather-crested similitude of what he had been,
alert, powerful, gifted with human ingenuity, the craft of weapons,
mental endowment, and an immortal soul,--so they went in the wintry
moonlight!

There was naught in this detail of the annual procession of the bears,
always taking place before the period of their hibernation, that
surprised or angered Tus-ka-sah; but that they should break from their
ancient law, their established habit of exclusiveness, single out Amoyah
(of all the people in the world), summon him to attend their tribal
celebration, and participate in their parade, as the shadow of Eeon-a,
the Great Bear,--this passed the bounds of the possibilities. This
fantasy had not the shreds of verisimilitude!

Yet even while he argued within himself Tus-ka-sah noted the old
warrior's gaze fix spellbound upon Amoyah, the hands of Altsasti
petrify, the bead in one, the motionless thread in the other. The eyes
of the more remote of the group, who were seated on rugs around the
fire, glistened wide and startled, in the shadow, as Amoyah proceeded to
relate how it had chanced.