{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_6611/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_6611","id":"gutenberg_6611","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6611","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Short Stories","Folklore -- United States"],"text":"Produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\n                           MYTHS AND LEGENDS\n                                   OF\n                              OUR OWN LAND\n\n                                   By\n                           Charles M. Skinner\n\n                                Vol. 6.\n\n\n                   THE CENTRAL STATES AND GREAT LAKES\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS:\n\nAn Averted Peril\nThe Obstinacy of Saint Clair\nThe Hundredth Skull\nThe Crime of Black Swamp\nThe House Accursed\nMarquette's Man-Eater\nMichel de Coucy's Troubles\nWallen's Ridge\nThe Sky Walker of Huron\nThe Coffin of Snakes\nMackinack\nLake Superior Water Gods\nThe Witch of Pictured Rocks\nThe Origin of White Fish\nThe Spirit of Cloudy\nThe Sun Fire at Sault Sainte Marie\nThe Snake God of Belle Isle\nWere-Wolves of Detroit\nThe Escape of Francois Navarre\nThe Old Lodger\nThe Nain Rouge\nTwo Revenges\nHiawatha\nThe Indian Messiah\nThe Vision of Rescue\nDevil's Lake\nThe Keusca Elopement\nPipestone\nThe Virgins' Feast\nFalls of St. Anthony\nFlying Shadow and Track Maker\nSaved by a Lightning-Stroke\nThe Killing of Cloudy Sky\nProvidence Hole\nThe Scare Cure\nTwelfth Night at Cahokia\nThe Spell of Creve Coeur Lake\nHow the Crime was Revealed\nBanshee of the Bad Lands\nStanding Rock\nThe Salt Witch\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE CENRAL STATES AND THE GREAT LAKES\n\n\n\nAN AVERTED PERIL\n\nIn 1786 a little building stood at North Bend, Ohio, near the junction of\nthe Miami and Ohio Rivers, from which building the stars and stripes were\nflying. It was one of a series of blockhouses built for the protecting of\ncleared land while the settlers were coming in, yet it was a trading\nstation rather than a fort, for the attitude of government toward the red\nmen was pacific. The French of the Mississippi Valley were not\nreconciled, however, to the extension of power by a Saxon people, and the\nEnglish in Canada were equally jealous of the prosperity of those\nprovinces they had so lately lost. Both French and English had emissaries\namong the Shawnees when it had become known that the United States\nintended to negotiate a treaty with them.\n\nIt was the mild weather that comes for a time in October, when\nCantantowit blesses the land from his home in the southwest with rich\ncolors, plaintive perfumes of decay, soft airs, and tender lights a time\nfor peace; but the garrison at the fort realized that the situation was\nprecarious. The Shawnees had camped about them, and the air was filled\nwith the neighing of their ponies and the barking of their dogs. To let\nthem into the fort was to invite massacre; to keep them out after they\nhad been summoned was to declare war.\n\nColonel George Rogers Clarke, of Virginia, who was in command, scoffed at\nthe fears of his men, and would not give ear to their appeals for an\nadjournment of the meeting or a change of the place of it. At the\nappointed hour the doors were opened and the Indians came in. The pipe of\npeace was smoked in the usual form, but the red men were sullen and\ninsolent, and seemed to be seeking a cause of quarrel. Clarke explained\nthat the whites desired only peace, and he asked the wise men to speak\nfor their tribe. A stalwart chief arose, glanced contemptuously at the\nofficer and his little guard, and, striding to the table where Clarke was\nseated, threw upon it two girdles of wampum--the peace-belt and the\nwar-belt. \"We offer you these belts,\" he said. \"You know what they mean.\nTake which you like.\"\n\nIt was a deliberate insult and defiance. Both sides knew it, and many of\nthe men held their breath. Clarke carelessly picked up the war-belt on\nthe point of his cane and flung it among the assembled chiefs. Every man\nin the room sprang to his feet and clutched his weapon. Then, with a\nsternness that was almost ferocious, Clarke pointed to the door with an\nimperative action, and cried, \"Dogs, you may go!\"\n\nThe Indians were foiled in their ill intent by his self-possession and\nseeming confidence, which made them believe that he had forces in the\nvicinity that they were not prepared to meet. They had already had a\nbitter experience of his strength and craft, and in the fear that a trap\nhad been set for them they fled tumultuously. The treaty was ratified\nsoon after.\n\n\n\n\nTHE OBSTINACY OF SAINT CLAIR\n\nWhen the new First Regiment of United States Infantry paused at Marietta,\nOhio, on its way to garrison Vincennes, its officers made a gay little\ncourt there for a time. The young Major Hamtramck--contemptuously called\nby the Indians \"the frog on horseback,\" because of his round\nshoulders--found especial pleasure in the society of Marianne Navarre,\nwho was a guest at the house of General Arthur St. Clair; but the old\ngeneral viewed this predilection with disfavor, because he had hoped that\nhis own daughter would make a match with the major. But Louisa longed for\nthe freedom of the woods. She was a horsewoman and a hunter, and she had\na sentimental fondness for Indians.\n\nWhen Joseph Brandt (Thayendanegea) camped with his dreaded band near the\ntown, it was she who--without her father's knowledge, and in the disguise\nof an Indian girl--took the message that had been entrusted to a soldier\nasking the tribe to send delegates to a peace council at the fort. Louisa\nand Brandt had met in Philadelphia some years before, when both were\nstudents in that city, and he was rejoiced to meet her again, for he had\nmade no secret of his liking for her, and in view of the bravery she had\nshown in thus riding into a hostile camp his fondness increased to\nadmiration. After she had delivered the message she said, \"Noble warrior,\nI have risked my life to obtain this interview. You must send some one\nback with me.\" Brandt replied, \"It is fitting that I alone should guard\nso courageous a maiden,\" and he rode with her through the lines, under\nthe eyes of a wondering and frowning people, straight to the general's\ndoor. Soon after, Brandt made a formal demand for the hand of this\ndashing maid, but the stubborn general refused to consider it. He was\ndetermined that she ought to love Major Hamtramck, and he told her so in\ntones so loud that they reached the ears of Marianne, as she sat reading\nin her room. Stung by this disclosure of the general's wishes, and\ndoubting whether the major had been true to her--fearful, too, that she\nmight be regarded as an interloper--she made a pretext to return as\nquickly as possible to her home in Detroit, and left no adieus for her\nlover.\n\nIt was not long after that war broke out between the settlers and the\nIndians, for Brandt now had a personal as well as a race grudge to\ngratify, though when he defeated St. Clair he spared his life in the hope\nthat the general would reward his generosity by resigning to him his\ndaughter. At all events, he resolved that the \"frog on horseback,\" whom\nhe conceived to be his rival, should not win her. The poor major, who\ncared nothing for Louisa, and who was unable to account for the flight of\nMarianne, mourned her absence until it was rumored that she had been\nmarried, when, as much in spite as in love, he took to himself a mate.\nAfter he had been for some time a widower he met Marianne again, and\nlearned that she was still a maiden. He renewed his court with ardor, but\nthe woman's love for him had died when she learned of his marriage.\nAffecting to make light of this second disappointment, he said, \"Since I\ncannot be united to you in life, I shall be near you in death.\"\n\n\"A soldier cannot choose where he shall die,\" she answered.\n\n\"No matter. I shall sleep in the shadow of your tomb.\"\n\nAs it fell out they were indeed buried near each other in Detroit. Thus,\nthe stupidity and obstinacy of General St. Clair, in supposing that he\ncould make young folks love to order, thwarted the happiness of four\npeople and precipitated a war.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HUNDREDTH SKULL\n\nIn the early part of this century Bill Quick, trapper and frontiersman,\nlived in a cabin on the upper Scioto, not far from the present town of\nKenton, Ohio. One evening when he returned from the hunt he found his\nhome rifled of its contents and his aged father weltering in his blood on\nthe floor. He then and there took oath that he would be revenged a\nhundredfold. His mission was undertaken at once, and for many a year\nthereafter the Indians of the region had cause to dread the doom that\ncame to them from brake and wood and fen,--now death by knife that\nflashed at them from behind a tree, and the next instant whirled through\nthe air and was buried to the hilt in a red man's heart; now, by bullet\nas they rowed across the rivers; now, by axe that clove their skulls as\nthey lay asleep.\n\nBill Quick worked secretly, and, unlike other men of the place and time,\nhe did not take his trophies Indian-fashion. The scalp was not enough. He\ntook the head. And presently a row of grinning skulls was ranged upon his\nshelves. Ninety-nine of these ghastly prizes occupied his cabin, and the\nman was confident that he should accomplish his intent. But the Indians,\nin terror, were falling away toward the lakes; they were keeping better\nguard; and ere the hundredth man had fallen before his rifle he was\nseized with fatal illness. Calling to him his son, Tom, he pointed to the\nskulls, and charged him to fulfil the oath he had taken by adding to the\nlist a hundredth skull. Should he fail in this the murdered ancestor and\nhe himself would come back to haunt the laggard. Tom accepted the trust,\nbut everything seemed to work against him. He never was much of a hunter\nnor a very true shot, and he had no liking for war; besides, the Indians\nhad left the country, as he fancied. So he grumbled at the uncongenial\ntask appointed for him and kept deferring it from week to week and from\nyear to year. When his conscience pricked him he allayed the smart with\ndrink, and his conscience seemed to grow more active as he grew older.\n\nOn returning to the cabin after a carouse he declared that he had heard\nvoices, that the skulls gibbered and cracked their teeth together as if\nmocking his weakness, and that a phosphorescent glare shone through the\nsockets of their eyes. In his cups he prattled his secret, and soon the\nwhole country knew that he was under oath to kill a red-skin-and the\ncountry laughed at him. On a certain day it was reported that a band of\nIndians had been seen in the neighborhood, and what with drink and the\ntaunts of his friends, he was impelled to take his rifle and set out once\nmore on the war-path. A settler heard a shot fired not long after. Next\nday a neighbor passing Tom Quick's cabin tapped at the door, and,\nreceiving no answer, pushed it open and entered. The hundredth skull was\nthere, on the shelves, a bullet-hole in the forehead, and the scalp gone.\nThe head was Quick's.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CRIME OF BLACK SWAMP\n\nTwo miles south of Munger, Ohio, in the heart of what used to be called\nthe Black Swamp, stood the Woodbury House, a roomy mansion long gone to\ndecay. John Cleves, the last to live in it, was a man whose evil\npractices got him into the penitentiary, but people had never associated\nhim with the queer sights and sounds in the lower chambers, nor with the\nfact that a man named Syms, who had gone to that house in 1842, had never\nbeen known to leave it. Ten years after Syms's disappearance it happened\nthat Major Ward and his friend John Stow had occasion to take shelter\nthere for the night--it being then deserted,--and, starting a blaze in\nthe parlor fireplace, they lit their pipes and talked till late. Stow\nwould have preferred a happier topic, but the major, who feared neither\nman nor devil, constantly turned the talk on the evil reputation of the\nhouse.\n\nWhile they chatted a door opened with a creak and a human skeleton\nappeared before them.\n\n\"What do you want? Speak!\" cried Ward. But waiting for no answer he drew\nhis pistols and fired two shots at the grisly object. There was a\nrattling sound, but the skeleton was neither dislocated nor disconcerted.\nAdvancing deliberately, with upraised arm, it said, in a husky voice, \"I,\nthat am dead, yet live in a sense that mortals do not know. In my earthly\nlife I was James Syms, who was robbed and killed here in my sleep by John\nCleves.\" With bony finger it pointed to a rugged gap in its left temple.\n\"Cleves cut off my head and buried it under the hearth. My body he cast\ninto his well.\" At these words the head disappeared and the voice was\nheard beneath the floor, \"Take up my skull.\" The watchers obeyed the\ncall, and after digging a minute beneath the hearth a fleshless head with\na wound on the left temple came to view. Ward took it into his hands, but\nin a twinkling it left them and reappeared on the shoulders of the\nskeleton.\n\n\"I have long wanted to tell my fate,\" it resumed, \"but could not until\none should be found brave enough to speak to me. I have appeared to many,\nbut you are the first who has commanded me to break my long silence. Give\nmy bones a decent burial. Write to my relative, Gilmore Syms, of\nColumbus, Georgia, and tell him what I have revealed. I have found\npeace.\" With a grateful gesture it extended its hand to Ward, who, as he\ntook it, shook like one with an ague, his wrist locked in its bony clasp.\nAs it released him it raised its hand impressively. A bluish light burned\nat the doorway for an instant. The two men found themselves alone.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HOUSE ACCURSED\n\nNear Gallipolis, Ohio, there stood within a few years an old house of\nfour rooms that had been occupied by Herman Deluse. He lived there alone,\nand, though his farming was of the crudest sort, he never appeared to\nlack for anything. The people had an idea that the place was under ban,\nand it was more than suspected that its occupant had been a pirate. In\nfact, he called his place the Isle of Pines, after a buccaneers'\nrendezvous in the West Indies, and made no attempt to conceal the strange\nplunder and curious weapons that he had brought home with him, but of\nmoney he never appeared to have much at once. When it came his time to\ndie he ended his life alone, so far as any knew--at least, his body was\nfound in his bed, without trace of violence or disorder. It was buried\nand the public administrator took charge of the estate, locking up the\nhouse until possible relatives should come to claim it, and the rustic\njury found that Deluse \"came to his death by visitation of God.\"\n\nIt was but a few nights after this that the Rev. Henry Galbraith returned\nfrom a visit of a month to Cincinnati and reached his home after a night\nof boisterous storm. The snow was so deep and the roads so blocked with\nwindfalls that he put up his horse in Gallipolis and started for his\nhouse on foot.\n\n\"But where did you pass the night?\" inquired his wife, after the\ngreetings were over. \"With old Deluse in the Isle of Pines,\" he answered.\n\"I saw a light moving about the house, and rapped. No one came; so, as I\nwas freezing, I forced open the door, built a fire, and lay down in my\ncoat before it. Old Deluse came in presently and I apologized, but he\npaid no attention to me. He seemed to be walking in his sleep and to be\nsearching for something. All night long I could hear his footsteps about\nthe house, in pauses of the storm.\"\n\nThe clergyman's wife and son looked at each other, and a friend who was\npresent--a lawyer, named Maren--remarked, \"You did not know that Deluse\nwas dead and buried?\" The clergyman was speechless with amazement. \"You\nhave been dreaming,\" said the lawyer. \"Still, if you like, we will go\nthere to-night and investigate.\"\n\nThe clergyman, his son, and the lawyer went to the house about nine\no'clock, and as they approached it a noise of fighting came from\nwithin--blows, the clink of steel, groans, and curses. Lights appeared,\nfirst at one window, then at another. The men rushed forward, burst in\nthe door, and were inside--in darkness and silence. They had brought\ncandles and lighted them, but the light revealed nothing. Dust lay thick\non the floor except in the room where the clergyman had passed the\nprevious night, and the door that he had then opened stood ajar, but the\nsnow outside was drifted and unbroken by footsteps. Then came the sound\nof a fall that shook the building. At the same moment it was noticed by\nthe other two men that young Galbraith was absent. They hurried into the\nroom whence the noise had come. A board was wrenched from the wall there,\ndisclosing a hollow that had been used for a hiding-place, and on the\nfloor lay young Galbraith with a sack of Spanish coins in his hand. His\nfather stooped to pick him up, but staggered back in horror, for the\nyoung man's life had gone. A post-mortem examination revealed no cause of\ndeath, and a rustic jury again laid it to a \"visitation of God.\"\nMARQUETTE'S MAN-EATER\n\nUntil it was worn away by the elements a curious relief was visible on\nthe bluffs of the Mississippi near Alton, Illinois. It was to be seen as\nlate as 1860, and represented a monster once famous as the \"piasa bird.\"\nFather Marquette not only believed it but described it as a man-eater in\nthe account of his explorations, where he mentions other zoological\ncuriosities, such as unicorns with shaggy mane and land-turtles three\nfeet long with two heads, \"very mischievous and addicted to biting.\" He\neven showed a picture of the maneater that accorded rudely with the\npicture on the rocks. It was said to prey on human flesh, and to be held\nin fear by the Indians, who encountered it on and near the Mississippi.\nIt had the body of a panther, wings like a bat, and head and horns of a\ndeer. Father Marquette gave it a human face. The sculpture was\nundoubtedly made by Indians, but its resemblance to the winged bulls of\nAssyria and the sphinxes of Egypt has been quoted as confirmation of a\nprehistoric alliance of Old and New World races or the descent of one\nfrom the other. It has also been thought to stand for the totem of some\ngreat chief-symbolizing, by its body, strength; by its wings, speed; by\nits head, gentleness and beauty. But may not the tradition of it have\ndescended from the discovery of comparatively late remains, by primitive\nman, of the winged saurians that crawled, swam, dived, or flew, lingering\non till the later geologic period? The legend of the man-eater may even\nhave been told by those who killed the last of the pterodactyls.\n\n\n\n\nMICHEL DE COUCY'S TROUBLES\n\nMichel De Coucy, of Prairie de Rocher, Illinois, sat before his door\nhumming thoughtfully, and trying to pull comfort out of a black pipe.. He\nwas in debt, and he did not like the sensation. As hunter, boatman,\nfiddler he had done well enough, but having rashly ventured into trade he\nhad lost money, and being unable to meet a note had applied to Pedro\nGarcia for a loan at usurious interest. Garcia was a black-whiskered\nSpaniard who was known to have been a gambler in New Orleans, and as\nMichel was in arrears in his payments he was now threatening suit.\nPresently the hunter jumped up with a glad laugh, for two horsemen were\napproaching his place--the superior of the Jesuit convent at Notre Dame\nde Kaskaskia and the governor of the French settlements in Illinois, of\nwhom he had asked advice, and who had come from Fort Chartres, on the\nMississippi, to give it in person. It was good advice, too, for the\neffect of it was that there was no law of that time--1750--by which a\nSpaniard could sue a Frenchman on French territory. Moreover, the bond\nwas invalid because it was drawn up in Spanish, and Garcia could produce\nno witness to verify the cross at the bottom of the document as of\nMichel's making.\n\nGreat was the wrath of the Spaniard when Michel told him this, nor was it\nlessened when the hunter bade him have no fear--that he might be obliged\nto repudiate part of the interest, but that every livre of the principal\nwould be forthcoming, if only a little time were allowed. The money\nlender walked away with clenched fists, muttering to himself, and Michel\nlit his pipe again.\n\nAt supper-time little Genevieve, the twelve-year-old daughter of Michel,\ndid not appear. The table was kept waiting for an hour. Michel sat down\nbut could not eat, and, after scolding awhile in a half-hearted fashion,\nhe went to the clearing down the road, where the child had been playing.\nA placard was seen upon a tree beside the way, and he called a passing\nneighbor to read to him these words: \"Meshell Coosy. French rascal. Pay\nme my money and you have your daughter. Pedro Garcia.\"\n\nAccustomed as he was to perils, and quick as he generally was in\nexpedient, Michel was overwhelmed by this stroke. The villagers offered\nto arm themselves and rescue the child, but he would not consent to this,\nfor he was afraid that Garcia might kill her, if he knew that force was\nto be set against him. In a day or two Michel was told to go to Fort\nChartres, as favorable news awaited him. He rode with all speed to that\npost, went to the official quarters, where the governor was sitting, and\nas he entered he became almost insane with rage, for Garcia stood before\nhim. Nothing but the presence of others saved the Spaniard's life, and it\nwas some time before Michel could be made to understand that Garcia was\nthere under promise of safe conduct, and that the representatives of King\nLouis were in honor bound to see that he was not injured. The points at\nissue between the two men were reviewed, and the governor gave it as his\ndecision that Michel must pay his debt without interest, that being\nforfeit by the Spaniard's abduction of Genevieve, and that the Spaniard\nwas to restore the girl, both parties in the case being remanded to\nprison until they had obeyed this judgment.\n\n\"But I have your promise of safe conduct!\" cried the Spaniard, blazing\nwith wrath.\n\n\"And you shall have it when the girl returns,\" replied the governor. \"You\nshall be protected in going and coming, but there is no reference in the\npaper that you hold as to how long we may wish to keep you with us.\"\n\nBoth men were marched away forthwith, but Michel was released in an hour,\nfor in that time the people had subscribed enough to pay his debt. The\nSpaniard sent a messenger to a renegade who had little Genevieve in\nkeeping, and next day he too went free, swearing horribly, but glad to\naccept the service of an armed escort until he was well out of town.\nMichel embraced his child with ardor when once she was in his arms again;\nthen he lighted his pipe and set out with her for home, convinced that\nFrench law was the best in the world, that Spaniards were not to be\ntrusted, and that it is safer to keep one's earnings under the floor than\nto venture them in trade.\n\n\n\n\nWALLEN'S RIDGE\n\nA century ago this rough eminence, a dozen miles from Chattanooga,\nTennessee, was an abiding place of Cherokee Indians, among whom was\nArinook, their medicine-man, and his daughter. The girl was pure and\nfair, and when a white hunter saw her one day at the door of her father's\nwigwam he was so struck with her charm of person and her engaging manner\nthat he resolved not to return to his people until he had won her for his\nwife. She had many lovers, though she favored none of them, and while the\nCherokees were at first loth to admit a stranger to their homes they\nforgot their jealousy when they found that this one excelled as a hunter\nand fisherman, that he could throw the knife and tomahawk better than\nthemselves, and that he was apt in their work and their sports.\n\nThey even submitted to the inevitable with half a grace when they found\nthat the stranger and the girl of whom they were so fond were in love.\nWith an obduracy that seems to be characteristic of fathers, the\nmedicine-man refused his consent to the union, and the hearts of the\ntwain were heavy. Though the white man pleaded with her to desert her\ntribe, she refused to do so, on the score of duty to her father, and the\ncouple forlornly roamed about the hill, watching the sunset from its top\nand passing the bright summer evenings alone, sitting hand in hand,\nloving, sorrowing, and speaking not. In one of their long rambles they\nfound themselves beside the Tennessee River at a point where the current\nswirls among rocks and sucks down things that float, discharging them at\nthe surface in still water, down the stream. Here for a time they stood,\nwhen the girl, with a gush of tears, began to sing--it was her\ndeath-song. The white man grasped her hand and joined his voice to hers.\nThen they took a last embrace and flung themselves into the water, still\nhand in hand.\n\nWhen the river is low you may hear their death-song sounding there. The\nmanitous of the river and the wood were offended with the medicine-man\nbecause of his stubbornness and cruelty, although he suffered greatly\nbecause of the death his daughter died, and he the cause of it. For now\nstrange Indians appeared among the Cherokees and drove the deer and bear\naway. Tall, strong, and large were these intruders, and they hung about\nthe village by day and night--never speaking, yet casting a fear about\nthem, for they would throw great rocks farther than a warrior could shoot\nan arrow with the wind behind him; they had horns springing from their\nheads; their eyes were the eyes of wild-cats, and shone in the dark; they\ngrowled like animals, shaking the earth when they did so, and breathing\nflame; they were at the bedside, at the council-fire, at the banquet,\nseeming only to wait for a show of enmity to annihilate the tribe.\n\nAt length the people could endure their company no longer, and taking\ndown their lodges they left Wallen's Ridge and wandered far away until\nthey came to a valley where no foot had left its impress, and there they\nbesought the Great Spirit to forgive the wrong their medicine-man had\ndone, and to free them from the terrible spirits that had been living\namong them. The prayer was granted, and the lodges stood for many years\nin a safe and happy valley.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SKY WALKER OF HURON\n\nHere is the myth of Endymion and Diana, as told on the shores of Saginaw\nBay, in Michigan, by Indians who never heard of Greeks. Cloud Catcher, a\nhandsome youth of the Ojibways, offended his family by refusing to fast\nduring the ceremony of his coming of age, and was put out of the paternal\nwigwam. It was so fine a night that the sky served him as well as a roof,\nand he had a boy's confidence in his ability to make a living, and\nsomething of fame and fortune, maybe. He dropped upon a tuft of moss to\nplan for his future, and drowsily noted the rising of the moon, in which\nhe seemed to see a face. On awaking he found that it was not day, yet the\ndarkness was half dispelled by light that rayed from a figure near\nhim--the form of a lovely woman.\n\n\"Cloud Catcher, I have come for you,\" she said. And as she turned away he\nfelt impelled to rise and follow. But, instead of walking, she began to\nmove into the air with the flight of an eagle, and, endowed with a new\npower, he too ascended beside her. The earth was dim and vast below,\nstars blazed as they drew near them, yet the radiance of the woman seemed\nto dull their glory. Presently they passed through a gate of clouds and\nstood on a beautiful plain, with crystal ponds and brooks watering noble\ntrees and leagues of flowery meadow; birds of brightest colors darted\nhere and there, singing like flutes; the very stones were agate, jasper,\nand chalcedony. An immense lodge stood on the plain, and within were\nembroideries and ornaments, couches of rich furs, pipes and arms cut from\njasper and tipped with silver. While the young man was gazing around him\nwith delight, the brother of his guide appeared and reproved her,\nadvising her to send the young man back to earth at once, but, as she\nflatly refused to do so, he gave a pipe and bow and arrows to Cloud\nCatcher, as a token of his consent to their marriage, and wished them\nhappiness, which, in fact, they had.\n\nThis brother, who was commanding, tall, and so dazzling in his gold and\nsilver ornaments that one could hardly look upon him, was abroad all day,\nwhile his sister was absent for a part of the night. He permitted Cloud\nCatcher to go with him on one of his daily walks, and as they crossed the\nlovely Sky Land they glanced down through open valley bottoms on the\ngreen earth below. The rapid pace they struck gave to Cloud Catcher an\nappetite and he asked if there were no game. \"Patience,\" counselled his\ncompanion. On arriving at a spot where a large hole had been broken\nthrough the sky they reclined on mats, and the tall man loosing one of\nhis silver ornaments flung it into a group of children playing before a\nlodge. One of the little ones fell and was carried within, amid\nlamentations. Then the villagers left their sports and labors and looked\nup at the sky. The tall man cried, in a voice of thunder, \"Offer a\nsacrifice and the child shall be well again.\" A white dog was killed,\nroasted, and in a twinkling it shot up to the feet of Cloud Catcher, who,\nbeing empty, attacked it voraciously.\n\nMany such walks and feasts came after, and the sights of earth and taste\nof meat filled the mortal with a longing to see his people again. He told\nhis wife that he wanted to go back. She consented, after a time, saying,\n\"Since you are better pleased with the cares, the ills, the labor, and\nthe poverty of the world than with the comfort and abundance of Sky Land,\nyou may return; but remember you are still my husband, and beware how you\nventure to take an earthly maiden for a wife.\"\n\nShe arose lightly, clasped Cloud Catcher by the wrist, and began to move\nwith him through the air. The motion lulled him and he fell asleep,\nwaking at the door of his father's lodge. His relatives gathered and gave\nhim welcome, and he learned that he had been in the sky for a year. He\ntook the privations of a hunter's and warrior's life less kindly than he\nthought to, and after a time he enlivened its monotony by taking to wife\na bright-eyed girl of his tribe. In four days she was dead. The lesson\nwas unheeded and he married again. Shortly after, he stepped from his\nlodge one evening and never came back. The woods were filled with a\nstrange radiance on that night, and it is asserted that Cloud Catcher was\ntaken back to the lodge of the Sun and Moon, and is now content to live\nin heaven.\n\n\n\n\nTHE COFFIN OF SNAKES\n\nNo one knew how it was that Lizon gained the love of Julienne, at L'Anse\nCreuse (near Detroit), for she was a girl of sweet and pious disposition,\nthe daughter of a God-fearing farmer, while Lizon was a dark, ill-favored\nwretch, who had come among the people nobody knew whence, and lived on\nthe profits of a tap-room where the vilest liquor was sold, and where\ngaming, fighting, and carousing were of nightly occurrence. Perhaps they\nwere right in saying that it was witchcraft. He impudently laid siege to\nher heart, and when she showed signs of yielding he told her and her\nfriends that he had no intention of marrying her, because he did not\nbelieve in religion.\n\nYet Julienne deserted her comfortable home and went to live with this\ndisreputable scamp in his disreputable tavern, to the scandal of the\ncommunity, and especially of the priest, who found Lizon's power for evil\ngreater than his own for good, for as the tavern gained in hangers-on the\nchurch lost worshippers. One Sunday morning Julienne surprised the people\nby appearing in church and publicly asking pardon for her wrong-doing. It\nwas the first time she had appeared there since her flight, and she was\nas one who had roused from a trance or fever-sleep. Her father gladly\ntook her home again, and all went well until New-Year's eve, when the\nyoung men called d'Ignolee made the rounds of the settlement to sing and\nbeg meat for the poor--a custom descended from the Druids. They came to\nthe house of Julienne's father and received his welcome and his goods,\nbut their song was interrupted by a cry of distress--Lizon was among the\nmaskers, and Julienne was gone. A crowd of villagers ran to the cabaret\nand rescued the girl from the room into which the fellow had thrust her,\nbut it was too late--she had lost her reason. Cursing and striking and\nblaspheming, Lizon was at last confronted by the priest, who told him he\nhad gone too far; that he had been a plague to the people and an enemy to\nthe church. He then pronounced against him the edict of excommunication,\nand told him that even in his grave he should not rest; that the church,\nabandoned by so many victims of his wiles and tyrannies, should be swept\naway.\n\nThe priest left the place forthwith, and the morals of the village fell\nlower and lower. Everything was against it, too. Blight and storm and\ninsect pest ravaged the fields and orchards, as if nature had engaged to\nmake an expression of the iniquity of the place. Suddenly death came upon\nLizon. A pit was dug near his tavern and he was placed in a coffin, but\nas the box was lowered it was felt to grow lighter, while there poured\nfrom it a swarm of fat and filthy snakes. The fog that overspread the\nearth that morning seemed to blow by in human forms, the grave rolled\nlike a wave after it had been covered, and after darkness fell a blue\nwill-o'-the-wisp danced over it. A storm set in, heaping the billows on\nshore until the church was undermined, and with a crash it fell into the\nseething flood. But the curse had passed, and when a new chapel was built\nthe old evils had deserted L'Anse Crease.\n\n\n\n\nMACKINACK\n\nNot only was Mackinack the birthplace of Hiawatha: it was the home of God\nhimself--Gitchi Manitou, or Mitchi Manitou--who placed there an Indian\nAdam and Eve to watch and cultivate his gardens. He also made the beaver,\nthat his children might eat, and they acknowledged his goodness in\noblations. Bounteous sacrifices insured entrance after death to the happy\nhunting-grounds beyond the Rocky Mountains. Those who had failed in these\nofferings were compelled to wander about the Great Lakes, shelterless,\nand watched by unsleeping giants who were ten times the stature of\nmortals.\n\nThese giants still exist, but in the form of conical rocks, one of\nwhich-called Sugar-Loaf, or Manitou's Wigwam--is ninety feet high. A cave\nin this obelisk is pointed out as Manitou's abiding-place, and it was\nbelieved that every other spire in the group had its wraith, whence has\ncome the name of the island--Michillimackinack (place of great dancing\nspirits). Arch Rock is the place that Manitou built to reach his home\nfrom Sunrise Land the better. There were many such monuments of\ndivinities in the north. They are met with all about the lakes and in the\nwooded wilderness, the most striking one being the magnificent spire of\nbasalt in the Black Hills region of Wyoming. It is known as Devil's\nTower, or Mateo's Tepee, and by the red men is held to be the wigwam of a\nwere-animal that can become man at pleasure. This singular rock towers\nabove the Belle Fourche River to a height of eight hundred feet.\n\nDeep beneath Mackinack was a stately and beautiful cavern hall where\nspirits had their revels. An Indian who got leave to quit his body saw it\nin company with one of the spirits, and spread glowing reports of its\nbeauties when he had clothed himself in flesh again. When Adam and Eve\ndied they, too, became spirits and continued to watch the home of\nManitou.\n\nNow, there is another version of this tradition which gives the, original\nname of the island as Moschenemacenung, meaning \"great turtle.\" The\nFrench missionaries and traders, finding the word something too large a\nmouthful, softened it to Michillimackinack, and, when the English came,\nthree syllables served them as well as a hundred, so Mackinack it is to\nthis day. Manitou, having made a turtle from a drop of his own sweat,\nsent it to the bottom of Lake Huron, whence it brought a mouthful of mud,\nand from this Mackinack was created. As a reward for his service the\nturtle was allowed to sleep there in the sun forever.\n\nYet another version has it that the Great Spirit plucked a sand-grain\nfrom the primeval ocean, set it floating on those waters, and tended it\nuntil it grew so large that a young wolf, running constantly, died of old\nage before reaching its limits. The sand became the earth. Prophecy has\nwarned the Winnebagoes that Manibozho (Michabo or Hiawatha) shall smite\nby pestilence at the end of their thirteenth generation. Ten are gone.\nAll shall perish but one pure pair, who will people the recreated world.\nManibozho, or Minnebojou, is called a \"culture myth,\" but the Indians\nhave faith in him. They say that he lies asleep on the north shore of\nLake Superior, beneath the \"hill of four knobs,\" known as the Sleeping\nGiant. There offerings are made to him, and it was a hope of his speedy\nrising that started the Messiah craze in the West in 1890.\n\n\n\n\nLAKE SUPERIOR WATER GODS\n\nThere were many water gods about Lake Superior to whom the Indians paid\nhomage, casting implements, ornaments, and tobacco into the water\nwhenever they passed a spot where one of these manitous sat enthroned. At\nThunder Cape, on the north shore, lies Manibozho, and in the pillared\nrecess of La Chapelle, among the Pictured Rocks, dwelt powerful rulers of\nthe storm to whose mercy the red men commended themselves with quaint\nrites whenever they were to set forth on a voyage over the great unsalted\nsea. At Le Grand Portal were hidden a horde of mischievous imps, among\nwhose pranks was the repetition of every word spoken by the traveller as\nhe rested on his oars beneath this mighty arch. The Chippewas worked the\ncopper mines at Keweenaw Point before the white race had learned of a\nWestern land, but they did so timidly, for they believed that a demon\nwould visit with injury or death the rash mortal who should presume to\npillage his treasure, unless he had first bestowed gifts upon him. Even\nthen they went ashore with fear, lighted fires around a surface of native\ncopper, hacked off a few pounds of the softened metal, and ran to their\ncanoes without looking behind them.\n\nThere was another bad manitou at the mouth of Superior Bay, where\nconflicting currents make a pother of waters. This spirit sat on the\nbottom of the lake, gazing upward, and if any boatman ventured to cross\nhis domain without dropping a pipe or beads or hatchet into it, woe\nbetide him, for his boat would be caught in a current and smashed against\na rocky shore. Perhaps the most vexatious god was he who ruled the\nFloating Islands. These islands were beautiful with trees and flowers,\nmetal shone and crystals sparkled on their ledges, sweet fruits grew in\nplenty, and song-birds flitted over them. In wonder and delight the\nhunter would speed toward them in his canoe, but as he neared their turfy\nbanks the jealous manitou, who kept these fairy lands for his own\npleasure, would throw down a fog and shut them out of sight. Never could\nthe hunter set foot on them, no matter how long he kept up his search.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WITCH OF PICTURED ROCKS\n\nOn the Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior dwelt an Ojibway woman, a widow,\nwho was cared for by a relative. This relative was a hunter, the husband\nof an agreeable wife, the father of two bright children. Being of a mean\nand jealous nature, the widow begrudged every kindness that the hunter\nshowed to his wife--the skins he brought for her clothing, the moose's\nlip or other dainty that he saved for her; and one day, in a pretence of\nfine good-nature, the old woman offered to give the younger a swing in a\nvine pendent from a tree that overhung the lake.\n\nThe wife accepted, and, seating herself on the vine, was swayed to and\nfro, catching her breath, yet laughing as she swept out over the water.\nWhen the momentum was greatest the old woman cut the stem. A splash was\nheard--then all was silent. Returning to the lodge, the hag disguised\nherself in a dress of the missing woman, and sitting in a shadow,\npretended to nurse the infant of the household. The hunter, returning,\nwas a little surprised that his wife should keep her face from him, and\nmore surprised that the old woman did not appear for her share of the\nfood that he had brought; but after their meal he took his little ones to\nthe lake, to enjoy the evening breeze, when the elder burst into tears,\ndeclaring that the woman in the lodge was not his mother, and that he\nfeared his own mother was dead or lost.\n\nThe hunter hurled his spear into the earth and prayed that, if his wife\nwere dead, her body might be found, so he could mourn over it and give it\nburial. Instantly a bolt of lightning came from a passing cloud and shot\ninto the lake, while the thunder-peal that followed shook the stones he\nstood on. It also disturbed the water and presently something was seen\nrising through it. The man stepped into a thicket and watched. In a few\nmoments a gull arose from the lake and flew to the spot where the\nchildren were seated. Around its body was a leather belt, embroidered\nwith beads and quills, which the hunter recognized, and, advancing\nsoftly, he caught the bird--that changed at once into the missing woman.\nThe family set forth toward home, and as they entered the lodge the\nwitch--for such she was--looked up, with a start, then uttered a cry of\ndespair. Bending low, she moved her arms in both imprecation and appeal.\nA moment later a black, ungainly bird flew from the wigwam and passed\nfrom sight among the trees. The witch never came back to plague them.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ORIGIN OF WHITE-FISH\n\nAn Indian who lived far in the north was so devoted to the chase that he\nwas never at home for the whole of a day, to the sorrow of his two boys,\nwho liked nothing so much as to sport with him and to be allowed to\npractise with his weapons. Their mother told them that on no account were\nthey to speak to him of the young man who visited the lodge while their\nfather was away, and it was not until they were well grown and knew what\nthe duty of wives should be that they resolved to disobey her. The hunter\nstruck the woman dead when he learned of her perfidy. So greatly did her\nspirit trouble them, however, that they could no longer abide in their\nold home in peace and comfort, and they left the country and journeyed\nsouthward until they came to the Sault Sainte Marie.\n\nAs they stood beside the falls a head came rolling toward them on the\nearth--the head of the dead woman. At that moment, too, a crane was seen\nriding on the surface of the water, whirling about in its strongest\neddies, and when one of the boys called to it, \"O Grandfather, we are\npersecuted by a spirit; take us across the falls,\" the crane flew to\nthem. \"Cling to my back and do not touch my head,\" it said to them, and\nlanded them safely on the farther shore.\n\nBut now the head screamed, \"Come, grandfather, and carry me over, for I\nhave lost my children and am sorely distressed,\" and the bird flew to her\nlikewise. \"Be careful not to touch my head,\" it said. The head promised\nobedience, but succumbed to curiosity when half-way over and touched the\nbird's head to see what was the matter with him. With a lurch the crane\nflung off his burden and it fell into the rapids. As it swept down,\nbumping against the rocks, the brains were pounded out and strewn over\nthe water. \"You were useless in life,\" cried the crane. \"You shall not be\nso in death. Become fish!\" And the bits of brain changed to roe that\npresently hatched to a delicate white fish, the flesh whereof is esteemed\nby Indians of the lakes, and white men, likewise. The family pitched a\nlodge near the spot and took the crane as their totem or name-mark. Many\nof their descendants bear it to this day.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SPIRIT OF CLOUDY\n\nAmong the lumbermen of Alger, Michigan, was William Cloud, an Indian,\nusually called Cloudy, who was much employed on a chute a mile and a half\nout of the village. The rains were heavy one spring, and a large raft of\nlogs had been floated down to the chute, where they were held back by a\ngate until it was time to send them through in a mass. When the creek had\nreached its maximum height the foreman gave word to the log-drivers to\nlower the gate and let the timber down. This order came on a chilly April\nnight, and, as it was pitchy dark and rain was falling in sheets, the\nlumbermen agreed to draw cuts to decide which of them should venture out\nand start the logs. Cloudy drew the fatal slip. He was a quiet fellow,\nand without a word he opened the door, bent against the storm, and passed\ninto the darkness. An hour went by, and the men in the cabin laughed as\nthey described the probable appearance of their comrade when he should\nreturn, soaked through and through, and they wondered if he was waiting\nin some shelter beside the path for the middle of the night to pass, for\nthe Indians believed that an evil spirit left the stream every night and\nwas abroad until that hour.\n\nAs time lengthened the jest and talk subsided and a moody silence\nsupervened. At length one of the number resolved to sally out and see if\nany mishap had fallen to the Indian. He was joined by three others, and\nthe party repaired to the creek. Above the chute it was seen that the\ngate--which was released by the withdrawal of iron pins and sank of its\nown weight-had not quite settled into place, and by the light of a\nlantern held near the surface of the rushing current an obstruction could\nbe dimly seen. The gate was slightly raised and the object drawn up with\npike-poles. It was the mangled body of Cloudy. He was buried beside the\ncreek; but the camp was soon abandoned and the chute is in decay, for\nbetween the hours of ten and twelve each night the wraith of the Indian,\naccompanied by the bad spirit of the stream, ranges through the wood, his\nform shining blue in the gloom, his groans sounding above the swish and\nlap of the waters.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SUN FIRE AT SAULT SAINTE MARIE\n\nFather Marquette reached Sault Sainte Marie, in company with Greysolon Du\nLhut, in August, 1670, and was received in a manner friendly enough, but\nthe Chippewas warned him to turn back from that point, for the Ojibways\nbeyond were notoriously hostile to Europeans, their chief--White\nOtter--having taken it on himself to revenge, by war, his father's\ndesertion of his mother. His father was a Frenchman. Inspired by his\nmission, and full of the enthusiasm of youth and of the faith that had\nled him safely through a host of dangers and troubles, Marquette refused\nto change his plans, and even ventured the assertion that he could tame\nthe haughty Otter and bring him to the cross. At dawn he and his doughty\nhenchman set off in a war-canoe, but, on arriving in White Otter's camp\nand speaking their errand, they were seized and bound, to await death on\nthe morrow. The wife of the chief spoke, out of the kindness of her\nheart, and asked mercy for the white men. To no avail. The brute struck\nher to the ground. That night his daughter, Wanena, who had seen Du Lhut\nat the trading post and had felt the stir of a generous sentiment toward\nhim, appeared before the prisoners when sleep was heaviest in the camp,\ncut their bonds, led them by an obscure path to the river, where she\nenjoined them to enter a canoe, and guided the boat to the Holy Isle.\nThis was where the Ojibways came to lay offerings before the image of\nManitou, whose home was there believed to be. There the friendly red men\nwould be sure to find and rescue them, she thought, and after a few hours\nof sleep she led them into a secluded glen where stood the figure rudely\ncarved from a pine trunk, six feet high, and tricked with gewgaws. As\nthey stood there, stealthy steps were heard, and before they could\nconceal themselves White Otter and eight of his men were upon them. Du\nLhut grasped a club from among the weapons that--with other\nofferings--strewed the earth at the statue's feet and prepared to sell\nhis life dearly. The priest drew forth his crucifix and prayed. The girl\ndropped to the ground, drew her blanket over her head, and began to sing\nher death-song.\n\n\"So the black-coat and the woman-stealer have come to die before the\nIndian's god?\" sneered the chief.\n\n\"If it be God's will, we will die defying your god and you,\" replied\nMarquette. \"Yet we fear not death, and if God willed he could deliver us\nas easily as he could destroy that worthless image.\" He spoke in an\nundertone to Du Lhut, and continued, confidently, \"challenge your god to\nwithstand mine. I shall pray my God to send his fire from the sky and\nburn this thing. If he does so will you set us free and become a\nChristian?\"\n\n\"I will; but if you fail, you die.\"\n\n\"And if I win you must pardon your daughter.\"\n\nWhite Otter grunted his assent.\n\nThe sun was high and brought spicy odors from the wood; an insect hummed\ndrowsily, and a bird-song echoed from the distance. Unconscious of what\nwas being enacted about her, Wanena kept rocking to and fro, singing her\ndeath-song, and waiting the blow that would stretch her at her father's\nfeet. The savages gathered around the image and watched it with eager\ninterest. Raising his crucifix with a commanding gesture, the priest\nstrode close to the effigy, and in a loud voice cried, in Chippewa, \"In\nthe name of God, I command fire to destroy this idol!\"\n\nA spot of light danced upon the breast of the image. It grew dazzling\nbright and steady. Then a smoke began to curl from the dry grass and\nfeathers it was decked with. The Indians fell back in amazement, and when\na faint breeze passed, fanning the sparks into flame, they fell on their\nfaces, trembling with apprehension, for Marquette declared, \"As my God\ntreats this idol, so can he treat you!\"\n\nThen, looking up to see the manitou in flames, White Otter exclaimed,\n\"The white man's God has won. Spare us, O mighty medicine!\"\n\n\"I will do so, if you promise to become as white men in the faith and be\nbaptized.\" Tamed by fear, the red men laid aside their weapons and knelt\nat a brook where Marquette, gathering water in his hands, gave the rite\nof baptism to each, and laid down the moral law they were to live by.\nWanena, who had fainted from sheer fright when she saw the idol burning,\nwas restored, and it may be added that the priest who Christianized her\nalso married her to Du Lhut, who prospered and left his name to the city\nof the lake. News of the triumph of the white men's God went far and\nwide, and Marquette found his missions easier after that. Du Lhut alone,\nof all those present, was in the father's secret. He had perpetrated a\npious fraud, justified by the results as well as by his peril. A\nburning-glass had been fastened to the crucifix, and with that he had\ndestroyed the idol.\n\nTrading thus on native ignorance a Frenchman named Lyons at another time\nimpressed the Indians at Dubuque and gained his will by setting a creek\non fire. They did not know that he had first poured turpentine over it.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SNAKE GOD OF BELLE ISLE\n\nThe Indian demi-god, Sleeping Bear, had a daughter so beautiful that he\nkept her out of the sight of men in a covered boat that swung on Detroit\nRiver, tied to a tree on shore; but the Winds, having seen her when her\nfather had visited her with food, contended so fiercely to possess her\nthat the little cable was snapped and the boat danced on to the keeper of\nthe water-gates, who lived at the outlet of Lake Huron. The keeper,\nfilled with admiration for the girl's beauty, claimed the boat and its\ncharming freight, but he had barely received her into his lodge when the\nangry Winds fell upon him, buffeting him so sorely that he died, and was\nburied on Peach Island (properly Isle au Peche), where his spirit\nremained for generations--an oracle sought by Indians before emprise in\nwar. His voice had the sound of wind among the reeds, and its meanings\ncould not be told except by those who had prepared themselves by fasting\nand meditation to receive them. Before planning his campaign against the\nEnglish, Pontiac fasted here for seven days to \"clear his ear\" and hear\nthe wisdom of the sighing voice.\n\nBut the Winds were not satisfied with the slaying of the keeper. They\ntore away his meadows and swept them out as islands. They smashed the\ndamsel's boat and the little bark became Belle Isle. Here Manitou placed\nthe girl, and set a girdle of vicious snakes around the shore to guard\nher and to put a stop to further contests. These islands in the straits\nseem to have been favorite places of exile and theatres of\ntransformation. The Three Sisters are so called because of three Indian\nwomen who so scolded and wrangled that their father was obliged to\nseparate them and put one on each of the islands for the sake of peace.\n\nIt was at Belle Isle that the red men had put up and worshipped a natural\nstone image. Hearing of this idol, on reaching Detroit, Dollier and De\nGalinee crossed over to it, tore it down, smashed it, flung the bigger\npiece of it into the river, and erected a cross in its place. The sunken\nportion of the idol called aloud to the faithful, who had assembled to\nwonder at the audacity of the white men and witness their expected\npunishment by Manitou, and told them to cast in the other portions. They\ndid so, and all the fragments united and became a monster serpent that\nkept the place from further intrusion. Later, when La Salle ascended the\nstraits in his ship, the Griffin, the Indians on shore invoked the help\nof this, their manitou, and strange forms arose from the water that\npushed the ship into the north, her crew vainly singing hymns with a hope\nof staying the demoniac power.\n\n\n\n\nWERE-WOLVES OF DETROIT\n\nLong were the shores of Detroit vexed by the Snake God of Belle Isle and\nhis children, the witches, for the latter sold enchantments and were the\nterror of good people. Jacques Morand, the _coureur de bois_, was in love\nwith Genevieve Parent, but she disliked him and wished only to serve the\nchurch. Courting having proved of no avail, he resolved on force when she\nhad decided to enter a convent, and he went to one of the witches, who\nserved as devil's agent, to sell his soul. The witch accepted the slight\ncommodity and paid for it with a grant of power to change from a man's\nform to that of a were-wolf, or _loup garou_, that he might the easier\nbear away his victim. Incautiously, he followed her to Grosse Pointe,\nwhere an image of the Virgin had been set up, and as Genevieve dropped at\nthe feet of the statue to implore aid, the wolf, as he leaped to her\nside, was suddenly turned to stone.\n\nHarder was the fate of another maiden, Archange Simonet, for she was\nseized by a were-wolf at this place and hurried away while dancing at her\nown wedding. The bridegroom devoted his life to the search for her, and\nfinally lost his reason, but he prosecuted the hunt so vengefully and\nshrewdly that he always found assistance. One of the neighbors cut off\nthe wolf's tail with a silver bullet, the appendage being for many years\npreserved by the Indians. The lover finally came upon the creature and\nchased it to the shore, where its footprint is still seen in one of the\nbowlders, but it leaped into the water and disappeared. In his crazy\nfancy the lover declared that it had jumped down the throat of a catfish,\nand that is why the French Canadians have a prejudice against catfish as\nan article of diet.\n\nThe man-wolf dared as much for gain as for love. On the night that Jean\nChiquot got the Indians drunk and bore off their beaver-skins, the wood\nwitches, known as \"the white women,\" fell upon him and tore a part of his\ntreasure from him, while a were-wolf pounced so hard on his back that he\nlost more. He drove the creatures to a little distance, but was glad to\nbe safe inside of the fort again, though the officers laughed at him and\ncalled him a coward. When they went back over the route with him they\nwere astonished to find the grass scorched where the women had fled\nbefore him, and little springs in the turf showed where they had been\nswallowed up. Sulphur-water was bubbling from the spot where the wolf\ndived into the earth when the trader's rosary fell out of his jacket.\nBelle Fontaine, the spot was called, long afterward.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ESCAPE OF FRANCOIS NAVARRE\n\nWhen the Hurons came to Sandwich, opposite the Michigan shore, in 1806,\nand camped near the church for the annual \"festival of savages,\" which\nwas religious primarily, but incidentally gastronomic, athletic, and\nalcoholic, an old woman of the tribe foretold to Angelique Couture that,\nere long, blood would be shed freely and white men and Indians would take\neach other's lives. That was a reasonably safe prophecy in those days,\nand, though Angelique repeated it to her friends, she did not worry over\nit. But when the comet of 1812 appeared the people grew afraid--and with\ncause, for the war soon began with England. The girl's brothers fought\nunder the red flag; her lover, Francois Navarre, under the stars and\nstripes.\n\nThe cruel General Proctor one day passed through Sandwich with prisoners\non his way to the Hurons, who were to put them to death in the usual\nmanner. As they passed by, groaning in anticipation of their fate,\nfoot-sore and covered with dust, Angelique nearly swooned, for among them\nshe recognized her lover. He, too, had seen her, and the recognition had\nbeen noticed by Proctor. Whether his savage heart was for the moment\nsoftened by their anguish, or whether he wished to heighten their pain by\na momentary taste of joy, it is certain that on reaching camp he paroled\nFrancrois until sunset. The young man hastened to the girl's house, and\nfor one hour they were sadly happy. She tried to make him break his\nparole and escape, but he refused, and as the sun sank he tore himself\nfrom her arms and hastened to rejoin his companions in misery.\n\nHis captors admired him for this act of honor, and had he so willed he\ncould have been then and there received into their tribe. As it was, they\nallowed him to remain unbound. Hardly had the sun gone down when a number\nof boats drew up at the beach with another lot of prisoners, and with\nyells of rejoicing the Indians ran to the river to drive them into camp.\nFrancois's opportunity was brief, but he seized it. In the excitement he\nhad been unobserved. He was not under oath now, and with all speed he\ndashed into the wood. Less than a minute had elapsed before his absence\nwas discovered, but he was a cunning woodman, and by alternately running\nand hiding, with gathering darkness in his favor, he had soon put the\nsavages at a distance.\n\nA band of English went to Angelique's home, thinking that he would be\nsure to rejoin her; but he was too shrewd for that, and it was in vain\nthat they fired guns up the chimneys and thrust bayonets into beds.\nAngelique was terrified at this intrusion, but the men had been ordered\nnot to injure the woman, and she was glad, after all, to think that\nFrancois had escaped. Some days later one of the Hurons came to her door\nand pointed significantly to a fresh scalp that hung at his belt. In the\nbelief that it was her lover's she grew ill and began to fade, but one\nevening there came a faint tap at the door. She opened it to find a cap\non the door-step.\n\nThere was no writing, yet her heart rose in her bosom and the color came\nback to her cheeks, for she recognized it as her lover's. Later, she\nlearned that Francois had kept to the forest until he reached the site of\nWalkerville, where he had found a canoe and reached the American side in\nsafety. She afterward rejoined him in Detroit, and they were married at\nthe end of the war, through which he served with honor and satisfaction\nto himself, being enabled to pay many old scores against the red-coats\nand the Indians.\n\n\n\n\nTHE OLD LODGER\n\nIn 1868 there died in Detroit a woman named Marie Louise Thebault, more\nusually called Kennette. She was advanced in years, and old residents\nremembered when she was one of the quaintest figures and most assertive\nspirits in the town, for until a few years before her death she was rude\nof speech, untidy in appearance, loved nothing or respected nothing\nunless it might be her violin and her money, and lived alone in a little\nold house on the river-road to Springwells. Though she made shoes for a\nliving, she was of so miserly a nature that she accepted food from her\nneighbors, and in order to save the expense of light and fuel she spent\nher evenings out. Yet she read more or less, and was sufficiently\nacquainted with Volney, Voltaire, and other skeptics to shock her church\nacquaintances. Love of gain, not of company, induced her to lease one of\nher rooms to a pious old woman, from whom she got not only a little rent,\nbut the incidental use of her fuel and light.\n\nWhen the pious one tried to win her to the church it angered her, and\nthen, too, she had a way of telling ghost stories that Kennette laughed\nat. One of these narratives that she would dwell on with especial\nself-conviction was that of Lieutenant Muir, who had left his mistress,\nwhen she said No to his pleadings, supposing that she spoke the truth,\nwhereas she was merely trying to be coquettish.\n\nHe fell in an attack on the Americans that night, and came back,\nbleeding, to the girl who had made him throw his life away; he pressed\nher hand, leaving the mark of skeleton fingers there, so that she always\nkept it gloved afterward. Then there was the tale of the two men of\nDetroit who were crushed by a falling tree: the married one, who was not\nfatally hurt, begged his mate to call his wife, as soon as his soul was\nfree, and the woman, hearing the mournful voice at her door, as the\nspirit passed on its way to space, ran out and rescued her husband from\nhis plight. She told, too, of the _feu follet_, or will-o'-the-wisp, that\nled a girl on Grosse Isle to the swamp where her lover was engulfed in\nmire and enabled her to rescue him. There was Grand'mere Duchene,\nlikewise, who worked at her spinning-wheel for many a night after death,\nstriking fear to her son's heart, by its droning, because he had not\nbought the fifty masses for the repose of her soul, but when he had\nfulfilled the promise she came no more. Another yarn was about the\nghost-boat of hunter Sebastian that ascends the straits once in seven\nyears, celebrating his return, after death, in accordance with the\npromise made to Zoe, his betrothed, that--dead or alive--he would return\nto her from the hunt at a certain time.\n\nTo all this Kennette turned the ear of scorning. \"Bah!\" she cried. \"I\ndon't believe your stories. I don't believe in your hell and your\npurgatory. If you die first, come back. If I should, and I can, I will\ncome. Then we may know whether there is another world.\"\n\nThe bargain was made to this effect, but the women did not get on well\ntogether, and soon Kennette had an open quarrel with her lodger that\nended by her declaring that she never could forgive her, but that she\nwould hold her to her after-death compact. The lodger died, and while\ntalking of her death at the house of a neighbor a boy, who had arrived\nfrom town, casually asked Kennette--knowing her saving ways--why she had\nleft the light burning in her house. Grasping a poker, she set off at\nonce to punish the intruder who had dared to enter in her absence, but\nwhen she arrived there was no light. On several evenings the light was\nreported by others, but as she was gadding in the neighborhood she never\nsaw it until, one night, resolved to see for herself, she returned early,\nsoftly entered at the back door, and went to bed. Hardly had she done so\nwhen she saw a light coming up-stairs. Sitting bolt upright in bed she\nwaited. The light came up noiselessly and presently stood in the\nroom--not a lantern or candle, but a white phosphorescence. It advanced\ntoward her, changing its form until she saw a cloudy likeness to a human\nbeing. For the first time in her life she feared. \"Come no nearer!\" she\ncried. \"I know you. I believe you, and I forgive.\"\n\nThe light vanished. From that night it was remarked that Kennette began\nto age fast--she began to change and become more like other women. She\nwent to church and her face grew softer and kinder. It was the only time\nthat she saw the spirit, but the effect of the visit was permanent.\n\n\n\n\nTHE NAIN ROUGE\n\nAmong all the impish offspring of the Stone God, wizards and witches,\nthat made Detroit feared by the early settlers, none were more dreaded\nthan the Nain Rouge (Red Dwarf), or Demon of the Strait, for it appeared\nonly when there was to be trouble. In that it delighted. It was a\nshambling, red-faced creature, with a cold, glittering eye and teeth\nprotruding from a grinning mouth. Cadillac, founder of Detroit, having\nstruck at it, presently lost his seigniory and his fortunes. It was seen\nscampering along the shore on the night before the attack on Bloody Run,\nwhen the brook that afterward bore this name turned red with the blood of\nsoldiers. People saw it in the smoky streets when the city was burned in\n1805, and on the morning of Hull's surrender it was found grinning in the\nfog. It rubbed its bony knuckles expectantly when David Fisher paddled\nacross the strait to see his love, Soulange Gaudet, in the only boat he\ncould find--a wheel-barrow, namely--but was sobered when David made a\nsafe landing.\n\nIt chuckled when the youthful bloods set off on Christmas day to race the\nfrozen strait for the hand of buffer Beauvais's daughter Claire, but when\nher lover's horse, a wiry Indian nag, came pacing in it fled before their\nhappiness. It was twice seen on the roof of the stable where that\nsour-faced, evil-eyed old mumbler, Jean Beaugrand, kept his horse, Sans\nSouci--a beast that, spite of its hundred years or more, could and did\nleap every wall in Detroit, even the twelve-foot stockade of the fort, to\nsteal corn and watermelons, and that had been seen in the same barn,\nsitting at a table, playing seven-up with his master, and drinking a\nliquor that looked like melted brass. The dwarf whispered at the sleeping\near of the old chief who slew Friar Constantine, chaplain of the fort, in\nanger at the teachings that had parted a white lover from his daughter\nand led her to drown herself--a killing that the red man afterward\nconfessed, because he could no longer endure the tolling of a mass bell\nin his ears and the friar's voice in the wind.\n\nThe Nain Rouge it was who claimed half of the old mill, on Presque Isle,\nthat the sick and irritable Josette swore that she would leave to the\ndevil when her brother Jean pestered her to make her will in his favor,\ngiving him complete ownership. On the night of her death the mill was\nwrecked by a thunder-bolt, and a red-faced imp was often seen among the\nruins, trying to patch the machinery so as to grind the devil's grist. It\ndirected the dance of black cats in the mill at Pont Rouge, after the\nwidow's curse had fallen on Louis Robert, her brother-in-law. This man,\nsucceeding her husband as director of the property, had developed such\nmiserly traits that she and her children were literally starved to death,\nbut her dying curse threw such ill luck on the place and set afloat such\nevil report about it that he took himself away. The Nain Rouge may have\nbeen the Lutin that took Jacques L'Esperance's ponies from the stable at\nGrosse Pointe, and, leaving no tracks in sand or snow, rode them through\nthe air all night, restoring them at dawn quivering with fatigue, covered\nwith foam, bloody with the lash of a thorn-bush. It stopped that exercise\non the night that Jacques hurled a font of holy water at it, but to keep\nit away the people of Grosse Pointe still mark their houses with the sign\nof a cross.\n\nIt was lurking in the wood on the day that Captain Dalzell went against\nPontiac, only to perish in an ambush, to the secret relief of his\nsuperior, Major Gladwyn, for the major hoped to win the betrothed of\nDalzell; but when the girl heard that her lover had been killed at Bloody\nRun, and his head had been carried on a pike, she sank to the ground\nnever to rise again in health, and in a few days she had followed the\nvictims of the massacre. There was a suspicion that the Nain Rouge had\npower to change his shape for one not less offensive. The brothers\nTremblay had no luck in fishing through the straits and lakes until one\nof them agreed to share his catch with St. Patrick, the saint's half to\nbe sold at the church-door for the benefit of the poor and for buying\nmasses to relieve souls in purgatory. His brother doubted if this benefit\nwould last, and feared that they might be lured into the water and turned\ninto fish, for had not St. Patrick eaten pork chops on a Friday, after\ndipping them into holy water and turning them into trout? But his good\nbrother kept on and prospered and the bad one kept on grumbling. Now, at\nGrosse Isle was a strange thing called the rolling muff, that all were\nafraid of, since to meet it was a warning of trouble; but, like the _feu\nfollet_, it could be driven off by holding a cross toward it or by asking\nit on what day of the month came Christmas. The worse of the Tremblays\nencountered this creature and it filled him with dismay. When he returned\nhis neighbors observed an odor--not of sanctity--on his garments, and\ntheir view of the matter was that he had met a skunk. The graceless man\nfelt convinced, however, that he had received a devil's baptism from the\nNain Rouge, and St. Patrick had no stancher allies than both the\nTremblays, after that.\n\n\n\n\nTWO REVENGES\n\nIt is no more possible to predicate the conduct of an Indian than that of\na woman. In Detroit lived Wasson, one of the warriors of the dreaded\nPontiac, who had felt some tender movings of the spirit toward a girl of\nhis tribe. The keeper of the old red mill that stood at the foot of\nTwenty-fourth Street adopted her, with the consent of her people, and did\nhis best to civilize her. But Wasson kept watch. He presently discovered\nthat whenever the miller was away a candle shone in the window until a\nfigure wrapped in a military cloak emerged from the shadows, knocked, and\nwas admitted. On the night that Wasson identified his rival as Colonel\nCampbell, an English officer, he stole into the girl's room through the\nwindow and cut her down with his hatchet. Colonel Campbell, likewise, he\nslew after Pontiac had made prisoners of the garrison. The mill was\nshunned, after that, for the figure of a girl, with a candle in her hand,\nfrightened so many people by moving about the place that it was torn down\nin 1795.\n\nBut the red man was not always hostile. Kenen, a Huron, loved a\nhalf-breed girl, whom he could never persuade into a betrothal. One day\nhe accidentally wounded a white man in the wood, and lifting him on his\nshoulder he hurried with him to camp. It was not long before he found\nthat the soft glances of the half-breed girl were doing more to cure his\nvictim than the incantations of the medicine-man, and in a fit of anger,\none day, he plucked forth his knife and fell upon the couple. Her look of\ninnocent surprise shamed him. He rushed away, with an expression of\nself-contempt, and flung his weapon far into the river. Soon after, the\nwhite man was captured by the Iroquois. They were preparing to put him to\nthe torture when a tall Indian leaped in among them, with the cry, \"I am\nKenen. Let the pale face go, for a Huron chief will take his place.\" And,\nas the bonds fell from the prisoner's wrists and ankles, he added, \"Go\nand comfort the White Fawn.\" The white man was allowed to enter a canoe\nand row away, but as he did so his heart misgave him: the words of a\ndeathsong and the crackling of flames had reached his ears.\n\n\n\n\nHIAWATHA\n\nThe story of Hiawatha--known about the lakes as Manabozho and in the East\nas Glooskapis the most widely disseminated of the Indian legends. He came\nto earth on a Messianic mission, teaching justice, fortitude, and\nforbearance to the red men, showing them how to improve their handicraft,\nridding the woods and hills of monsters, and finally going up to heaven\namid cries of wonder from those on whose behalf he had worked and\ncounselled. He was brought up as a child among them, took to wife the\nDakota girl, Minnehaha (\"Laughing Water\"), hunted, fought, and lived as a\nwarrior; yet, when need came, he could change his form to any shape of\nbird, fish, or plant that he wished. He spoke to friends in the voice of\na woman and to enemies in tones like thunder. A giant in form, few dared\nto resist him in battle, yet he suffered the common pains and adversities\nof his kind, and while fishing in one of the great lakes in his white\nstone canoe, that moved whither he willed it, he and his boat were\nswallowed by the king of fishes. He killed the creature by beating at its\nheart with a stone club, and when the gulls had preyed on its flesh, as\nit lay floating on the surface, until he could see daylight, he clambered\nthrough the opening they had made and returned to his lodge.\n\nBelieving that his father had killed his mother, he fought against him\nfor several days, driving him to the edge of the world before peace was\nmade between them. The evil Pearl Feather had slain one of his relatives,\nand to avenge that crime Hiawatha pressed through a guard of\nfire-breathing serpents which surrounded that fell personage, shot them\nwith arrows as they struck at him, and having thus reached the lodge of\nhis enemy he engaged him in combat. All day long they battled to no\npurpose, but toward evening a woodpecker flew overhead and cried, \"Your\nenemy has but one vulnerable point. Shoot at his scalp-lock.\" Hiawatha\ndid so and his foe fell dead. Anointing his finger with the blood of his\nfoe, he touched the bird, and the red mark is found on the head of every\nwoodpecker to this day. A duck having led him a long chase when he was\ntrying to capture it for food, he angrily kicked it, thus flattening its\nback, bowing its legs, despoiling it of half of its tail-feathers, and\nthat is why, to this day, ducks are awkward.\n\nIn return for its service in leading him to where the prince of serpents\nlived, he invested the kingfisher with a medal and rumpled the feathers\nof its head in putting it on; hence all kingfishers have rumpled knots\nand white spots on their breasts. After slaying the prince of serpents he\ntravelled all over America, doing good work, and on reaching Onondaga he\norganized a friendly league of thirteen tribes that endured for many\nyears. This closed his mission. As he stood in the assemblage of chiefs a\nwhite bird, appearing at an immense height, descended like a meteor,\nstruck Hiawatha's daughter with such force as to drive her remains into\nthe earth and shattered itself against the ground. Its silvery feathers\nwere scattered, and these were preserved by the beholders as ornaments\nfor their hair--so the custom of wearing feather head-dresses endures to\nour time. Though filled with consternation, Hiawatha recognized the\nsummons. He addressed his companions in tones of such sweetness and terms\nof such eloquence as had never been heard before, urging them to live\nuprightly and to enforce good laws, and unhappy circumstance!--promising\nto come back when the time was ripe. The expectancy of his return has led\nto ghost-dances and similar demonstrations of enmity against the whites.\nWhen he had ended he entered his stone canoe and began to rise in air to\nstrains of melting music. Higher and higher he arose, the white vessel\nshining in the sunlight, until he disappeared in the spaces of the sky.\n\nIncidents of the Hiawatha legend are not all placed, but he is thought to\nhave been born near the great lakes, perhaps at Mackinack. Some legends,\nindeed, credit him with making his home at Mackinack, and from that\npoint, as a centre, making a new earth around him. The fight with his\nfather began on the upper Mississippi, and the bowlders found along its\nbanks were their missiles. The south shore of Lake Superior was the scene\nof his conflict with the serpents. He hunted the great beaver around Lake\nSuperior and brought down his dam at the Sault Sainte Marie. A depression\nin a rock on the southern edge of Michipicotea Bay is where he alighted\nafter a jump across the lake. In a larger depression, near Thunder Bay,\nhe sat when smoking his last pipe. The big rocks on the east side of\nGrand Traverse Bay, near Antrim City, Michigan, are the bones of a stone\nmonster that he slew.\n\nSo trifling an incident as the kicking of the duck has been localized at\nLake Itasca. [It is worth passing mention that this name, which sounds as\nif it were of Indian origin, is held by some to be composed of the last\nsyllables of _veritas_ and the first letters of _caput_, these\nwords-signifying \"the true head\"--being applied by early explorers as\nshowing that they were confident of having found the actual source of the\nMississippi.] Minnehaha lived near the fall in Minneapolis that bears her\nname. The final apotheosis took place on the shores of Lake Onondaga, New\nYork, though Hiawatha lies buried under a mountain, three miles long, on\nthe east side of Thunder Bay, Lake Superior, which, from the water,\nresembles a man lying on his back. The red man makes oblation, as he rows\npast, by dropping a pinch of tobacco into the water. Some say that\nHiawatha now lives at the top of the earth, amid the ice, and directs the\nsun. He has to live in a cold country because, if he were to return, he\nwould set the earth on fire with his footsteps.\n\n\n\n\nTHE INDIAN MESSIAH\n\nThe promise of the return to earth of various benign spirits has caused\nmuch trouble among the red men, and incidentally to the white men who are\nthe objects of their fanatic dislike. The New Mexicans believed that when\nthe Emperor Montezuma was about to leave the earth he planted a tree and\nbade them watch it, for when it fell he would come back in glory and lead\nthem to victory, wealth, and power. The watch was kept in secret on\naccount of the determination of the Spaniards to breakup all fealty to\ntribal heroes and traditions. As late as 1781 they executed a sentence of\ndeath on a descendant of the Peruvian Incas for declaring his royal\norigin. When Montezuma's tree fell the people gathered on the house-tops\nto watch the east-in vain, for the white man was there. In 1883 the\nSanpoels, a small tribe in Washington, were stirred by the teaching of an\nold chief, who told them that the wicked would soon be destroyed, and\nthat the Great Spirit had ordered him to build an ark for his people. The\nremains of this vessel, two hundred and eighty-eight feet long, are still\nto be seen near one of the tributaries of the Columbia.\n\nA frenzy swept over the West in 1890, inspiring the Indians by promise of\nthe coming of one of superhuman power, who was generally believed to be\nHiawatha, to threaten the destruction of the white population, since it\nhad been foretold that the Messiah would drive the white men from their\nland. Early in the summer of that year it was reported that the Messiah\nhad appeared in the north, and the chiefs of many tribes went to Dakota,\nas the magi did to Bethlehem, to learn if this were true. Sitting Bull,\nthe Sioux chief, told them, in assembly, that it was so, and declared\nthat he had seen the new Christ while hunting in the Shoshone Mountains.\nOne evening he lost his way and was impelled by a strange feeling to\nfollow a star that moved before him. At daybreak it paused over a\nbeautiful valley, and, weary with his walk, he sank on a bed of moss. As\nhe sat there throngs of Indian warriors appeared and began a spirit\ndance, led by chiefs who had long been dead. Presently a voice spoke in\nhis ear, and turning he saw a strange man dressed in white. The man said\nhe was the same Christ who had come into the world nineteen hundred years\nbefore to save white men, and that now he would save the red men by\ndriving out the whites. The Indians were to dance the ghost-dance, or\nspirit dance, until the new moon, when the globe would shiver, the wind\nwould glow, and the white soldiers and their horses would sink into the\nearth. The Messiah showed to Sitting Bull the nail-wounds in his hands\nand feet and the spear-stab in his side. When night came on the form in\nwhite had disappeared--and, returning, the old chief taught the\nghost-dance to his people.\n\n\n\n\nTHE VISION OF RESCUE\n\nSurmounting Red Banks, twelve miles north of Green Bay, Wisconsin, on the\neastern shore, and one hundred feet above the water, stands an earthwork\nthat the first settlers found there when they went into that country. It\nwas built by the Sauks and Outagamies, a family that ruled the land for\nmany years, rousing the jealousy of neighboring tribes by their wealth\nand power. The time came, as it did in the concerns of nearly every band\nof Indians, when war was declared against this family, and the enemy came\nupon them in the darkness, their canoes patroling the shore while the\nmain body formed a line about the fort. So silently was this done that\nbut one person discovered it--a squaw, who cried, \"We are all dead!\"\n\nThere was nothing to see or hear, and she was rated for alarming the camp\nwith foolish dreams; but dawn revealed the beleaguering line, and at the\nlifting of the sun a battle began that lasted for days, those within the\nearthworks sometimes fighting while ankle-deep in the blood of their\nfellows. The greatest lack of the besieged was that of water, and they\nlet down earthen jars to the lake to get it, but the cords were cut ere\nthey could be drawn up, the enemy shouting, derisively, \"Come down and\ndrink!\" Several times they tried to do so, but were beaten back at every\nsally, and it seemed at last as if extermination was to be their fate.\n\nWhen matters were at their darkest one of the young men who had been\nfasting for ten days--the Indian custom when divine direction was sought\naddressed his companions to this effect: \"Last night there stood by me\nthe form of a young man, clothed in white, who said, 'I was once alive,\nbut I died, and now I live forever. Trust me and I will deliver you. Be\nfearless. At midnight I will cast a sleep on your enemies. Go forth\nboldly and you shall escape.'\" The condition was too desperate to\nquestion any means of freedom, and that night all but a handful of\ndisbelievers left the fort, while the enemy was in a slumber of\nexhaustion, and got away in safety. When the besiegers, in the morning,\nfound that the fort had been almost deserted, they fell on the few that\nremained to repent their folly, and put them to the knife and axe, for\ntheir fury was excessive at the failure of the siege.\n\n\n\n\nDEVIL'S LAKE\n\nAny of the noble rivers and secluded lakes of Wisconsin were held in\nesteem or fear by the northern tribes, and it was the now-forgotten\nevents and superstitions connected with them, not less than the frontier\ntendency for strong names, that gave a lurid and diabolical nomenclature\nto parts of this region. Devils, witches, magicians, and manitous were\nperpetuated, and Indians whose prowess was thought to be supernatural\nleft dim records of themselves here and there--as near the dells of the\nWisconsin, where a chasm fifty feet wide is shown as the ravine leaped by\nchief Black Hawk when flying from the whites. Devil's Lake was the home\nof a manitou who does not seem to have been a particularly evil genius,\nthough he had unusual power. The lake fills what is locally regarded as\nthe crater of an extinct volcano, and the coldness and purity kept by the\nwater, in spite of its lacking visible inlets or outlets, was one cause\nfor thinking it uncanny.\n\nThis manitou piled the heavy blocks of Devil's Door-Way and set up Black\nMonument and the Pedestalled Bowlder as thrones where he might sit and\nview the landscape by day--for the Indians appreciated the beautiful in\nnature and supposed their gods did, too--while at night he could watch\nthe dance of the frost spirits, the aurora borealis. Cleft Rock was\nsundered by one of his darts aimed at an offending Indian, who owed his\nlife to the manitou's bad aim. The Sacrifice Stone is shown where, at\nanother time, a girl was immolated to appease his anger. Cleopatra's\nNeedle, as it is now called, is the body of an ancient chief, who was\nturned into stone as a punishment for prying into the mysteries of the\nlake, a stone on East Mountain being the remains of a squaw who had\nsimilarly offended. On the St. Croix the Devil's Chair is pointed out\nwhere he sat in state. He had his play spells, too, as you may guess when\nyou see his toboggan slide in Weber Canon, Utah, while Cinnabar Mountain,\nin the Yellowstone country, he scorched red as he coasted down.\n\nThe hunter wandering through this Wisconsin wilderness paused when he\ncame within sight of the lake, for all game within its precincts was in\nthe manitou's protection; not a fish might be taken, and not even a drop\nof water could be dipped to cool the lips of the traveller. So strong was\nthis fear of giving offence to the manitou that Indians who were dying of\nwounds or illness, and were longing for a swallow of water, would refuse\nto profane the lake by touching their lips to it.\n\n\n\n\nTHE KEUSCA ELOPEMENT\n\nKeusca was a village of the Dakota Indians on the Wisconsin bluffs of the\nMississippi eighteen hundred miles from its mouth. The name means, to\noverthrow, or set aside, for it was here that a tribal law was broken.\nSacred Wind was a coquette of that village, for whose hand came many\nyoung fellows wooing with painted faces. For her they played the bone\nflute in the twilight, and in the games they danced and leaped their\nhardest and shot their farthest and truest when she was looking on.\nThough they amused her she cared not a jot for these suitors, keeping her\nlove for the young brave named the Shield--and keeping it secret, for he\nwas her cousin, and cousins might not wed. If a relative urged her to\nmarry some young fellow for whom she had no liking, she would answer that\nif forced to do so she would fling herself into the river, and spoke of\nWinonah and Lovers' Leap.\n\nShe was afraid to wed the Shield, for the medicine-men had threatened all\nwho dared to break the marriage laws with unearthly terrors; yet when the\nShield had been absent for several weeks on the war-path she realized\nthat life without his companionship was too hollow to be endured--and she\nadmired him all the more when he returned with two scalps hanging at his\nbelt. He renewed his wooing. He allayed her fears by assurances that he,\ntoo, was a medicine-man and could counteract the spells that wizards\nmight cast on them. Then she no longer repressed the promptings of her\nheart, but yielded to his suit. They agreed to elope that night.\n\nAs they left the little clearing in the wood where their interview had\ntaken place, a thicket stirred and a girl stole from it, looking intently\nat their retreating forms. The Swan, they had named her; but, with a\nflush in her dusky cheeks, her brows dark, her eyes glittering, she more\nrecalled the vulture--for she, too, loved the Shield; and she had now\nseen and heard that her love was hopeless. That evening she alarmed the\ncamp; she told the parents of Sacred Wind of the threatened violation of\ncustom, and the father rose in anger to seek her. It was too late, for\nthe flight had taken place. The Swan went to the river and rowed out in a\ncanoe. From the middle of the stream she saw a speck on the water to the\nsouthward, and knew it to be Sacred Wind and her lover, henceforth\nhusband. She watched until the speck faded in the twilight--then leaning\nover the side of the boat she capsized it, and passed from the view of\nmen.\n\n\n\n\nPIPESTONE\n\nPipestone, a smooth, hard, even-textured clay, of lively color, from\nwhich thousands of red men cut their pipe-bowls, forms a wall on the\nCoteau des Prairies, in Minnesota, that is two miles long and thirty feet\nhigh. In front of it lie five bowlders, the droppings from an iceberg to\nthe floor of the primeval sea, and beneath these masses of granite live\nthe spirits of two squaws that must be consulted before the stone can be\ndug. This quarry was neutral ground, and here, as they approached it, the\nmen of all tribes sheathed their knives and belted up their axes, for to\nthis place the Great Spirit came to kill and eat the buffalo, and it is\nthe blood of this animal that has turned the stone to red. Here, too, the\nThunder Bird had her nest, and her brood rent the skies above it with the\nclashing of their iron wings.\n\nA snake having crawled into this nest to steal the unhatched thunders,\nManitou caught up a piece of pipestone, hastily pressed it between his\nhands, giving it the shape of a man, and flung it at the reptile. The\nstone man's feet stuck fast in the ground, and there he stood for a\nthousand years, growing like a tree and drawing strength and knowledge\nout of the earth. Another shape grew up beside him--woman. In time the\nsnake gnawed them free from their foundations and the red-earth pair\nwandered off together. From them sprang all people.\n\nAges after, the Manitou called the red men to the quarry, fashioned a\npipe for them, told them it was a part of their flesh, and smoked it over\nthem, blowing the smoke to north, south, east, and west, in token that\nwherever the influence of the pipe extended there was to be brotherhood\nand peace. The place was to be sacred from war and they were to make\ntheir pipes from this rock. As the smoke rolled about him he gradually\ndisappeared from view. At the last whiff the ashes fell out and the\nsurface of the rock for miles burst into flame, so that it melted and\nglazed. Two ovens opened at its foot, and through the fire entered the\ntwo spirits Tsomecostee and Tsomecostewondee--that are still its\nguardians, answering the invocations of the medicine-men and accepting\nthe oblations of those who go to make pipes or carve their totems on the\nrock.\n\n\n\n\nTHE VIRGINS' FEAST\n\nA game of lacrosse was played by Indian girls on the ice near the present\nFort Snelling, one winter day, and the victorious trophies were awarded\nto Wenonah, sister of the chief, to the discomfiture of Harpstenah, her\nopponent, an ill-favored woman, neglected by her tribe, and jealous of\nWenonah's beauty and popularity. This defeat, added to some fancied\nslights, was almost more than she could bear, and during the contest she\nhad been cut in the head by one of the rackets--an accident that she\nfalsely attributed to her adversary in the game. She had an opportunity\nof proving her hatred, for directly that it was known how Wenonah had\nrefused to marry Red Cloud, a stalwart boaster, openly preferring a\nyounger warrior of the tribe, the ill-thinking Harpstenah sought out the\ndisappointed suitor, who sat moodily apart, and thus advised him,\n\"To-morrow is the Feast of Virgins, when all who are pure will sit at\nmeat together. Wenonah will be there. Has she the right to be? Have you\nnot seen how shamelessly she favors your rival's suit? Among the Dakotas\nto accuse is to condemn, and the girl who is accused at the Virgins'\nFeast is disgraced forever. She has shown for Red Cloud nothing but\ncontempt. If he shows no anger at it the girls will laugh at him.\"\n\nWith this she turned away and left Red Cloud to his meditations. Wenonah,\nat the door of her brother's wigwam, looked into the north and saw the\nstars grow pale through streams of electric fire. \"The Woman of the North\nwarns us of coming evil,\" muttered the chief. \"Some danger is near. Fire\non the lights!\" And a volley of musketry sent a shock through the still\nair.\n\n\"They shine for me,\" said Wenonah, sadly. \"For I shall soon join our\nfather, mother, and sister in the land of spirits. Before the leaves fell\nI sat beside the Father of Waters and saw a manitou rise among the waves.\nIt said that my sisters in the sunset world were calling to me and I must\nsoon go to them.\" The chief tried to laugh away her fancies and comforted\nher as well as he might, then leading her to the wigwam he urged her to\nsleep.\n\nNext day is the Virgins' Feast and Wenonah is among those who sit in the\nring, dressed in their gayest. None who are conscious of a fault may\nshare in the feast; nor, if one were exposed and expelled, might any\ninterpose to ask for mercy; yet a groan of surprise and horror goes\nthrough the company when Red Cloud, stalking up to the circle, seizes the\ngirl roughly by the shoulder and orders her away. No use to deny or\nappeal. An Indian warrior would not be so treacherous or unjust as to act\nin this way unless he had proofs. Without a word she enters the adjacent\nwood, draws her knife, and strikes it to her heart. With summer came the\nfever, and it ravaged through the band, laying low the infant and the\ncounsellor. Red Cloud was the first to die, and as he was borne away\nHarpstenah lifted her wasted form and followed him with dimming eyes,\nthen cried, \"He is dead. He hated Wenonah because she slighted him. I\nhated her because she was happy. I told him to denounce her. But she was\ninnocent.\"\n\n\n\n\nFALLS OF ST. ANTHONY\n\nSeveral of the Dakotas, who had been in camp near the site of St. Paul,\nleft their families and friends, when the hunting season opened, and went\ninto the north. On their arrival at another village of their tribe, they\nstayed to rest for a little, and one of the men used the time to\nill-advantage, as it fell out, for he conceived an attachment for a girl\nof this northern family, and on his way southward he wedded her and took\nher home with him. Proper enough to do, if he had not been married\nalready. The first wife knew that any warrior might take a second, if he\ncould support both; but the woman was stronger than the savage in her\nnature, and when her husband came back, with a red-cheeked woman walking\nbeside him, she felt that she should never know his love again. The man\nwas all attention to the young wife, whether the tribe tarried or\ntravelled. When they shifted camp the elder walked or rowed behind with\nher boy, a likely lad of ten or twelve.\n\nIt was when they were returning down the river after a successful hunt\nthat the whole company was obliged to make a carry around the quick water\nnear the head of St. Anthony's Falls. While the others were packing the\nboats and goods for transportation by hand to the foot of the cataract,\nthe forsaken wife chose a moment when none were watching to embark with\nher boy in one of the canoes. Rowing out to an island, she put on all her\nornaments, and dressed the lad in beads and feathers as if he were a\nwarrior. Her husband, finding her absent from the party, looked anxiously\nabout for some time, and was horrified to see her put out from the island\ninto the rapid current. She had placed the child high in the boat, and\nwas rowing with a steady stroke down the stream. He called and beckoned\nfranticly. She did not seem to hear him, nor did she turn her head when\nthe others joined their cries to his. For a moment those who listened\nheard her death-song, then the yeasty flood hid them from sight, and the\nhusband on the shore fell to the earth with a wail of anguish.\n\n\n\n\nFLYING SHADOW AND TRACK MAKER\n\nThe Chippewas and Sioux had come together at Fort Snelling to make merry\nand cement friendships. Flying Shadow was sad when the time came for the\ntribes to part, for Track Maker had won her heart, and no less strong\nthan her love was the love he felt for her. But a Chippewa girl might not\nmarry among the Sioux, and, if she did, the hand of every one would be\nagainst her should ever the tribes wage war upon each other, and war was\nnearer than either of them had expected. The Chippewas left with feelings\nof good will, Flying Shadow concealing in her bosom the trinkets that\ntestified to the love of Track Maker and sighing as she thought of the\nyears that might elapse ere they met again.\n\nTwo renegade Chippewas, that had lingered behind the band, played the\nvillain after this pleasant parting, for they killed a Sioux. Hardly was\nthe news of this outrage received at the fort ere three hundred warriors\nwere on the trail of their whilom guests and friends, all clamoring for\nrevenge. Among them was Track Maker, for he could not, as a warrior,\nremain behind after his brother had been shot, and, while his heart sank\nwithin him as he thought of the gentle Flying Shadow, he marched in\nadvance, and early in the morning the Chippewas were surprised between\nSt. Anthony's Falls and Rum River, where they had camped without fear,\nbeing alike ignorant and innocent of the murder for which so many were to\nbe punished.\n\nThe Sioux fell upon them and cut down all alike--men, women, and\nchildren. In the midst of the carnage Track Maker comes face to face with\nFlying Shadow, and with a cry of gladness she throws herself into his\narms. But there is no refuge there. Gladly as he would save her, he knows\ntoo well that the thirst for blood will not be sated until every member\nof that band is dead. He folds her to his bosom for an instant, looks\ninto her eyes with tenderness--then bowing his head he passes on and\nnever glances back. It is enough. She falls insensible, and a savage,\nrushing upon her, tears the scalp from her head.\n\nThe Sioux win a hundred scalps and celebrate their victory with dance and\nsong. Track Maker has returned with more scalps than any, and the maidens\nwelcome him as a hero, but he keeps gravely apart from all, and has no\nshare in the feasting and merry-making. Ever the trusting, pleading,\nwondering face of Flying Shadow comes before him. It looks out at him in\nthe face of the deer he is about to kill. He sees it in the river, the\nleaves, the clouds. It rises before him in dreams. The elder people say\nhe is bewitched, but he will have none of their curatives. When war\nbreaks out he is the first to go, the first to open battle. Rushing among\nhis enemies he lays about him with his axe until he falls, pierced with a\nhundred spears and arrows. It is the fate he has courted, and as he falls\nhis face is lighted with a smile.\n\n\n\n\nSAVED BY A LIGHTNING-STROKE\n\nThere was rough justice in the West in the old days. It had to be dealt\nseverely and quickly, for it was administered to a kind of men that\nbecame dangerous if they saw any advantage or any superiority in their\nstrength or numbers over the decent people with whom they were cast. They\nwere uncivilized foreigners and native renegades, for the most part, who\nhad drifted to the frontier in the hope of making a living without work\nmore easily than in the cities. As there were no lawyers or courts and\nfew recognized laws, the whole people constituted themselves a jury, and\nif a man were known to be guilty it was foolishness for any one to waste\nlogic on his case. And there is almost no record of an innocent man being\nhanged by lynchers in the West. For minor offences the penalty was to be\nmarched out of camp, with a warning to be very cautious about coming that\nway again, but for graver ones it was death.\n\nIn 1840 a number of desperate fellows had settled along Cedar River, near\nits confluence with the Iowa, who subsisted by means of theft from the\nfrugal and industrious. Some of these men applied themselves especially\nto horse-stealing, and in thinly settled countries, where a man has often\nto go twenty or thirty miles for supplies, or his mail, or medical\nattendance, it is thought to be a calamity to be without a horse.\n\nAt last the people organized themselves into a vigilance committee and\nran down the thieves. As the latter were a conscienceless gang of\nrascals, it was resolved that the only effectual way of reforming them\nwould be by hanging. One man of the nine, it is true, was supposed before\nhis arrest to be a respectable citizen, but his evil communications\nclosed the ears of his neighbors to his appeals, and it was resolved that\nhe, too, should hang.\n\nNot far away stood an oak with nine stout branches, and to this natural\ngallows the rogues were taken. As a squall was coming up the ceremonies\nwere short, and presently every limb was weighted with the form of a\ncaptive. The formerly respectable citizen was the last one to be drawn\nup, and hardly had his halter been secured before the storm burst and a\nbolt of lightning ripped off the limb on which he hung. During the delay\ncaused by this accident the unhappy man pleaded so earnestly for a\nrehearing that it was decided to give it to him, and when he had secured\nit he conclusively proved his innocence and was set free. The tree is\nstill standing. To the ruffians it was a warning and they went away. Even\nthe providential saving of one man did not detract from the value of the\nlesson to avoid bad company.\n\n\n\n\nTHE KILLING OF CLOUDY SKY\n\nIn the Dakota camp on the bank of Spirit Lake, or Lake Calhoun, Iowa,\nlived Cloudy Sky, a medicine-man, who had been made repellent by age and\naccident, but who was feared because of his magic power. At eighty years\nof age he looked for a third wife, and chose the daughter of a warrior,\nhis presents of blankets and calicoes to the parents winning their\nconsent. The girl, Harpstenah (a common name for a third daughter among\nthe Sioux), dreaded and hated this man, for it was rumored that he had\nkilled his first wife and basely sold his second. When she learned what\nhad been decided for her she rushed from the camp in tears and sat in a\nlonely spot near the lake to curse and lament unseen. As she sat there\nthe waters were troubled. There was no wind, yet great waves were thrown\nup, and tumbled hissing on the shore. Presently came a wave higher than\nthe rest, and a graceful form leaped from it, half shrouded in its own\nlong hair.\n\n\"Do not tremble,\" said the visitant, for Harpstenah had hidden her face.\n\"I am the daughter of Unktahe, the water god. In four days your parents\nwill give you to Cloudy Sky, as his wife, though you love Red Deer. It is\nwith you to wed the man you hate or the man you love. Cloudy Sky has\noffended the water spirits and we have resolved upon his death. If you\nwill be our agent in destroying him, you shall marry Red Deer and live\nlong and happily. The medicine-man wandered for years through the air\nwith the thunder birds, flinging his deadly fire-spears at us, and it was\nfor killing the son of Unktahe that he was last sent to earth, where he\nhas already lived twice before. Kill him while he sleeps and we will\nreward you.\"\n\nAs Harpstenah went back to the village her prospective bridegroom ogled\nher as he sat smoking before his lodge, his face blackened and blanket\ntorn in mourning for an enemy he had killed. She resolved to heed the\nappeal of the manitou. When Red Deer heard how she had been promised to\nthe old conjurer, he was filled with rage. Still, he became thoughtful\nand advised caution when she told him of the water spirit's counsel, for\nthe dwellers in the lakes were, of all immortals, most deceitful, and had\never been enemies of the Dakotas. \"I will do as I am bidden,\" she said,\nsternly. \"Go away and visit the Tetons for a time. It is now the moon of\nstrawberries\" (June), \"but in the moon when we gather wild rice\"\n(September) \"return and I will be your wife.\"\n\nRed Deer obeyed, after finding that she would not elope with him, and\nwith the announcement that he was going on a long hunt he took his leave\nof the village. Harpstenah made ready for the bridal and greeted her\nfuture husband with apparent pleasure and submissiveness. He gave a\nmedicine feast in token of the removal of his mourning, and appeared in\nnew clothing, greased and braided hair, and a white blanket decorated\nwith a black hand--the record of a slain enemy.\n\nOn the night before the wedding the girl creeps to his lodge, but\nhesitates when she sees his medicine-bag hanging beside the door--the\nmedicine that has kept its owner from evil and is sacred from the touch\nof woman. As she lingers the night-breeze seems to bring a voice from the\nwater: \"Can a Dakota woman want courage when she is forced to marry the\nman she hates?\"\n\nShe delays no longer. A knife-blade glitters for an instant in the\nmoonlight--and Cloudy Sky is dead. Strange, is it not, that the thunder\nbirds flap so heavily along the west at that moment and a peal of\nlaughter sounds from the lake? She washes the blood from the blade,\nsteals to her father's lodge, and pretends to sleep. In the morning she\nis loud in her grief when it is made known to her that the medicine-man\nwas no more, and the doer of the deed is never discovered. In time her\nwan face gets its color and when the leaves begin to fall Red Deer\nreturns and weds her.\n\nThey seem to be happy for a time, and have two sons who promise to be\nfamous hunters, but consumption fastens on Red Deer and he dies far from\nthe village. The sons are shot by enemies, and while their bodies are on\ntheir way to Harpstenah's lodge she, too, is stricken dead by lightning.\nThe spirit of Cloudy Sky had rejoined the thunder birds, and the water\nmanitou had promised falsely.\n\n\n\n\nPROVIDENCE HOLE\n\nThe going of white men into the prairies aroused the same sort of\nanimosity among the Indians that they have shown in other parts of the\ncountry when retiring before the advance of civilization, and many who\ntried to plant corn on the rolling lands of Iowa, though they did no harm\nto the red men, paid for the attempt with their lives. Such was the fate\nof a settler who had built his cabin on the Wyoming hills, near\nDavenport. While working in his fields an arrow, shot from a covert, laid\nhim low, and his scalp was cut away to adorn the belt of a savage. His\nlittle daughter, left alone, began to suffer from fears and loneliness as\nthe sun went lower and lower, and when it had come to its time of setting\nshe put on her little bonnet and went in search of him. As she gained the\nslope where he had last been seen, an Indian lifted his head from the\ngrass and looked at her.\n\nStarting back to run, she saw another behind her. Escape seemed hopeless,\nand killing or captivity would have been her lot had not a crevice opened\nin the earth close to where she stood. Dropping on hands and knees she\nhastily crawled in, and found herself in what seemed to be an extensive\ncavern. Hardly had she time to note the character of the place when the\ngap closed as strangely as it had opened and she was left in darkness.\nNot daring to cry aloud, lest Indians should hear her, she sat upright\nuntil her young eyes could keep open no longer; then, lying on a mossy\nrock, she fell asleep. In the morning the sun was shining in upon her and\nthe way to escape was open. She ran home, hungry, but thankful, and was\nfound and cared for by neighbors. \"Providence Hole\" then passed into the\nlegends of the country. It has closed anew, however.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SCARE CURE\n\nEarly in this century a restless Yankee, who wore the uninspiring name of\nTompkinson, found his way into Carondelet--or Vuide Poche, the French\nsettlement on the Mississippi since absorbed by St. Louis--and cast about\nfor something to do. He had been in hard luck on his trip from New\nEngland to the great river. His schemes for self-aggrandizement and the\nincidental enlightenment and prosperity of mankind had not thriven, and\nit was largely in pity that M. Dunois gave shelter to the ragged,\nhalf-starved, but still jaunty and resourceful adventurer. Dunois was the\none man in the place who could pretend to some education, and the two got\non together famously.\n\nAs soon as Tompkinson was in clothes and funds--the result of certain\nspeculations--he took a house, and hung a shingle out announcing that\nthere he practised medicine. Now, the fellow knew less about doctoring\nthan any village granny, but a few sick people that he attended had the\nrare luck to get well in spite of him, and his reputation expanded to\nmore than local limits in consequence. In the excess of spirits that\nprosperity created he flirted rather openly with a number of virgins in\nCarondelet, to the scandal of Dunois, who forbade him his house, and of\nthe priest, who put him under ban.\n\nFor the priest he cared nothing, but Dunois's anger was more serious--for\nthe only maid of all that he really loved was Marie Dunois, his daughter.\nHe formally proposed for her, but the old man would not listen to him.\nThen his \"practice\" fell away. The future looked as dark for him as his\nrecent past had been, until a woman came to him with a bone in her throat\nand begged to be relieved. His method in such cases was to turn a\nwheel-of-fortune and obey it. The arrow this time pointed to the word,\n\"Bleeding.\"\n\nHe grasped a scalpel and advanced upon his victim, who, supposing that he\nintended to cut her throat open to extract the obstacle, fell a-screaming\nwith such violence that the bone flew out. What was supposed to be his\nready wit in this emergency restored him to confidence, and he was able\nto resume the practice that he needed so much. In a couple of years he\ndisplayed to the wondering eyes of Dunois so considerable an accumulation\nof cash that he gave Marie to him almost without the asking, and, as\nTompkinson afterward turned Indian trader and quadrupled his wealth by\ncheating the red men, he became one of the most esteemed citizens of the\nWest.\n\n\n\n\nTWELFTH NIGHT AT CAHOKIA\n\nIt was Twelfth Night, and the French village of Cahokia, near St. Louis,\nwas pleasantly agitated at the prospect of a dance in the old court\nsaloon, which was assembly-room and everything else for the little place.\nThe thirteen holy fires were alight--a large one, to represent Christ; a\nlesser one, to be trampled out by the crowd, typing Judas. The twelfth\ncake, one slice with the ring in it, was cut, and there were drink and\nlaughter, but, as yet, no music. Gwen Malhon, a drift-wood collector, was\nthe most anxious to get over the delay, for he had begged a dance from\nLouison. Louison Florian was pretty, not badly off in possessions and\nprospects, and her lover, Beaurain, had gone away. She was beginning to\nlook a little scornful and impatient, so Gwen set off for a fiddler.\n\nHe had inquired at nearly every cabin without success, and was on his way\ntoward the ferry when he heard music. Before him, on the moonlit river,\nwas a large boat, and near it, on the bank, he saw a company of men\nsquatted about a fire and bousing together from a bottle. At a little\ndistance, on a stump, sat a thin, bent man, enveloped in a cloak, and it\nwas he who played. Gwen complimented him and pleaded the disappointment\nof the dancers in excuse of an urgent appeal that he should hurry with\nhim to the court saloon. The stranger was courteous. He sprang into the\nroad with a limping bound, shook down his cloak so as to disclose a\ncurled moustache, shaggy brows, a goat's beard, and a pair of glittering\neyes. \"I'll give them a dance!\" he exclaimed. \"I know one tune. They call\nit 'Returned from the Grave.' Pay? We'll see how you like my playing.\"\n\nOn entering the room where the caperish youth were already shuffling in\ncorners, the musician met Mamzel Florian, who offered him a slice of the\ncake. He bent somewhat near to take it, and she gave a little cry. He had\nfound the ring, and that made him king of the festival, with the right to\nchoose the prettiest girl as queen. A long drink of red wine seemed to\nput him in the best of trim, and he began to fiddle with a verve that was\nirresistible. In one minute the whole company--including the priest, some\nsaid--was jigging it lustily. \"Whew!\" gasped one old fellow. \"It is the\ndevil who plays. Get some holy water and sprinkle the floor.\"\n\nGwen watched the musician as closely as his labors would allow, for he\ndid not like the way the fiddler had of looking at Louison, and he\nthought to himself that Louison never blushed so prettily for him.\nForgetting himself when he saw the fiddler smile at the girl, he made a\nrush for the barrel where that artist was perched. He bumped against a\ndancer and fell. At that moment the light was put out and the hall rang\nwith screams and laughter. The tones of one voice sounded above the rest:\n\"By right of the ring the girl is mine.\"\n\n\"He has me,\" Louison was heard to say, yet seemingly not in fear. Lights\nwere brought. Louison and the fiddler were gone, the stranger's cloak and\nhalf of a false moustache were on the floor, while Gwen was jammed into\nthe barrel and was kicking desperately to get out. When released he\nrushed for the river-side where he had seen the boat. Two figures flitted\nbefore him, but he lost sight of them, and in the silence and loneliness\nhis choler began to cool. Could it really have been the devil? An owl\nhooted in the bush. He went away in haste. There was a rumor in after\nyears that Beaurain was an actor in a company that went up and down the\ngreat river on a barge, and that a woman who resembled Louison was also\nin the troupe. But Gwen never told the story of his disappointment\nwithout crossing himself.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SPELL OF CREVE CIUR LAKE\n\nNot far west of St. Louis the Lake of Creve Coeur dimples in the breezes\nthat bend into its basin of hills, and there, in summer, swains and\nmaidens go to confirm their vows, for the lake has an influence to\nstrengthen love and reunite contentious pairs. One reason ascribed for\nthe presence of this spell concerns a turbulent Peoria, ambitious of\nleadership and hungry for conquest, who fell upon the Chawanons at this\nplace, albeit he was affianced to the daughter of their chief. The girl\nherself, enraged at the treachery of the youngster, put herself at the\nhead of her band--a dusky Joan of Arc,--and the fight waged so furiously\nthat the combatants, what were left of them, were glad when night fell\nthat they might crawl away to rest their exhausted bodies and nurse their\nwounds. Neither tribe daring to invite a battle after that, hostilities\nwere stopped, but some time later the young captain met the girl of his\nheart on the shore, and before the amazon could prepare for either fight\nor flight he had caught her in his arms. They renewed their oaths of\nfidelity, and at the wedding the chief proclaimed eternal peace and\nblessed the waters they had met beside, the blessing being potent to this\nday.\n\nAnother reason for the enchantments that are worked here may be that the\nlake is occupied by a demon-fish or serpent that crawls, slimy and\ndripping, through the underbrush, whenever it sees two lovers together,\nand listens to their words. If the man prove faithless he would best\nbeware of returning to this place, for the demon is lurking there to\ndestroy him. This monster imprisons the soul of an Ozark princess who\nflung herself into the lake when she learned that the son of the Spanish\ngovernor, who had vowed his love to her, had married a woman of his own\nrank and race in New Orleans. So they call the lake Creve Coeur, or\nBroken Heart. On the day after the suicide the Ozark chief gathered his\nmen about him and paddled to the middle of the water, where he solemnly\ncursed his daughter in her death, and asked the Great Spirit to confine\nher there as a punishment for giving her heart to the treacherous white\nman, the enemy of his people. The Great Spirit gave her the form in which\nshe is occasionally seen, to warn and punish faithless lovers.\n\n\n\n\nHOW THE CRIME WAS REVEALED\n\nIn 1853 a Hebrew peddler, whose pack was light and his purse was full,\nasked leave to pass the night at the house of Daniel Baker, near Lebanon,\nMissouri. The favor was granted, and that was the last seen of Samuel\nMoritz; although, when some neighbors shook their heads and wondered how\nit was that Baker was so well in funds, there were others who replied\nthat it was impossible to keep track of peddlers, and that if Moritz\nwanted to start on his travels early in the morning, or to return to St.\nLouis for goods, it mattered to nobody. On an evening in 1860 when there\nwas a mist in the gullies and a new moon hung in the west, Rev. Mr.\nCummings, a clergyman of that region, was driving home, and as he came to\na bridge near \"old man\" Baker's farm he saw a man standing on it, with a\npack on his back and a stick in his hand, who was staring intently at\nsomething beneath the bridge. The clergyman greeted him cheerily and\nasked him if he would like to ride, whereat the man looked him in the\nface and pointed to the edge of the bridge. Mr. Cummings glanced down,\nsaw nothing, and when he looked up again the man with the pack had\ndisappeared. His horse at the same moment gave a snort and plunged\nforward at a run, so that the clergyman's attention was fully occupied\nuntil he had brought the animal under control again; when he glanced back\nand saw that the man was still standing in the bridge and looking over\nthe edge of it. The minister told his neighbors of this adventure, and on\nreturning with two of them to the spot next morning they found the body\nof old man Baker swinging by the neck from a beam of the bridge exactly\nbeneath where the apparition had stood--for it must have been an\napparition, inasmuch as the dust, damped though it had been with dew,\nshowed no trace of footprint. In taking down the body the men loosened\nthe earth on a shelving bank, and the gravel rolling away disclosed a\nskeleton with some bits of clothing on it that were identified as\nbelongings of Samuel Moritz. Was it conscience, craziness, or fate that\nled old man Baker to hang himself above the grave of his victim?\n\n\n\n\nBANSHEE OF THE BAD LANDS\n\n\"Hell, with the fires out,\" is what the Bad Lands of Dakota have been\ncalled. The fearless Western nomenclature fits the place. It is an\nancient sea-bottom, with its clay strata worn by frost and flood into\nforms like pagodas, pyramids, and terraced cities. Labyrinthine canons\nwind among these fantastic peaks, which are brilliant in color, but\nbleak, savage, and oppressive. Game courses over the castellated hills,\nrattlesnakes bask at the edge of the crater above burning coal seams, and\nwild men have made despairing stand here against advancing civilization.\nIt may have been the white victim of a red man's jealousy that haunts the\nregion of the butte called \"Watch Dog,\" or it may have been an Indian\nwoman who was killed there, but there is a banshee in the desert whose\ncries have chilled the blood that would not have cooled at the sight of a\nbear or panther. By moonlight, when the scenery is most suggestive and\nunearthly, and the noises of wolves and owls inspire uneasy feelings, the\nghost is seen on a hill a mile south of the Watch Dog, her hair blowing,\nher arms tossing in strange gestures.\n\nIf war parties, emigrants, cowboys, hunters, any who for good or ill are\ngoing through this country, pass the haunted butte at night, the rocks\nare lighted with phosphor flashes and the banshee sweeps upon them. As if\nwishing to speak, or as if waiting a question that it has occurred to\nnone to ask, she stands beside them in an attitude of appeal, but if\nasked what she wants she flings her arms aloft and with a shriek that\nechoes through the blasted gulches for a mile she disappears and an\ninstant later is seen wringing her hands on her hill-top. Cattle will not\ngraze near the haunted butte and the cowboys keep aloof from it, for the\nword has never been spoken that will solve the mystery of the region or\nquiet the unhappy banshee.\n\nThe creature has a companion, sometimes, in an unfleshed skeleton that\ntrudges about the ash and clay and haunts the camps in a search for\nmusic. If he hears it he will sit outside the door and nod in time to it,\nwhile a violin left within his reach is eagerly seized and will be played\non through half the night. The music is wondrous: now as soft as the stir\nof wind in the sage, anon as harsh as the cry of a wolf or startling as\nthe stir of a rattler. As the east begins to brighten the music grows\nfainter, and when it is fairly light it has ceased altogether. But he who\nlistens to it must on no account follow the player if the skeleton moves\naway, for not only will it lead him into rocky pitfalls, whence escape is\nhopeless, but when there the music will intoxicate, madden, and will\nfinally charm his soul from his body.\n\n\n\n\nSTANDING ROCK\n\nThe stone that juts from one of the high banks of the Missouri, in South\nDakota, gives its name to the Standing Rock Agency, which, by reason of\nmany councils, treaties, fights, feasts, and dances held there, is the\nbest known of the frontier posts. It was a favorite gathering place of\nthe Sioux before the advent of the white man. The rock itself is only\ntwenty-eight inches high and fifteen inches wide, and could be plucked up\nand carried away without difficulty, but no red man is brave enough to do\nthat, for this is the transformed body of a squaw who was struck into\nstone by Manitou for falsely suspecting her husband of unfaithfulness.\n\nAfter her transformation she not only remained sentient but acquired\nsupernatural powers that the Sioux propitiated by offerings of beads,\ntobacco, and ribbons, paint, fur, and game--a practice that was not\nabandoned until the teachings of missionaries began to have effect among\nthem. Soldiers and trappers think the story an ingenious device to\nprevent too close inquiry into the lives of some of the nobility of the\ntribe. The Arickarees, however, regard this stone as the wife of one of\ntheir braves, who was so pained and mortified when her husband took a\nsecond wife that she went out into the prairie and neither ate nor drank\nuntil she died, when the Great Spirit turned her into the Standing Stone.\nThe squaws still resort to it in times of domestic trouble.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SALT WITCH\n\nA pillar of snowy salt once stood on the Nebraska plain, about forty\nmiles above the point where the Saline flows into the Platte, and white\nmen used to hear of it as the Salt Witch. An Indian tribe was for a long\ntime quartered at the junction of the rivers, its chief a man of blood\nand muscle in whom his people gloried, but so fierce, withal, that nobody\nmade a companion of him except his wife, who alone could check his\ntigerish rages.\n\nIn sooth, he loved her so well that on her death he became a recluse and\nshut himself within his lodge, refusing to see anybody. This mood endured\nwith him so long that mutterings were heard in the tribe and there was\ntalk of choosing another chief. Some of this talk he must have heard, for\none morning he emerged in war-dress, and without a word to any one strode\nacross the plain to westward. On returning a full month later he was more\ncommunicative and had something unusual to relate. He also proved his\nprowess by brandishing a belt of fresh scalps before the eyes of his\nwarriors, and he had also brought a lump of salt.\n\nHe told them that after travelling far over the prairie he had thrown\nhimself on the earth to sleep, when he was aroused by a wailing sound\nclose by. In the light of a new moon he saw a hideous old woman\nbrandishing a tomahawk over the head of a younger one, who was kneeling,\nbegging for mercy, and trying to shake off the grip from her throat. The\nsight of the women, forty miles from the village, so surprised the chief\nthat he ran toward them. The younger woman made a desperate effort to\nfree herself, but in vain, as it seemed, for the hag wound her left hand\nin her hair while with the other she raised the axe and was about to\nstrike.\n\nAt that moment the chief gained a view of the face of the younger\nwoman-it was that of his dead wife. With a snarl of wrath he leaped upon\nthe hag and buried his own hatchet in her brain, but before he could\ncatch his wife in his arms the earth had opened and both women\ndisappeared, but a pillar of salt stood where he had seen this thing. For\nyears the Indians maintained that the column was under the custody of the\nSalt Witch, and when they went there to gather salt they would beat the\nground with clubs, believing that each blow fell upon her person and kept\nher from working other evil.","title":"Myths and Legends of Our Own Land \u2014 Volume 06 : Central States and Great Lakes","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":22443}