and dashing away to his wigwam he grasps his faithful knife,
returns almost at a single bound to the scene of fear and fright,
rushes out along the leaning tree to the spot where his treasure fell,
and springing with the fury of a mad panther, pounced upon his prey.
The animal turned, and with one stroke of his huge paw brought
the lovers heart to heart, but the next moment the warrior, with one
plunge of the blade of his knife, opened the crimson sluices of death,
and the dying bear relaxed his hold.
That night there was no more sleep for the band or the lovers,
and as the young and the old danced about the carcass of the dead monster,
the gallant warrior was presented with another plume, and ere
another moon had set he had a living treasure added to his heart.
Their children for many years played upon the skin of the white-bear–
from which the lake derives its name–and the maiden and the brave
remembered long the fearful scene and rescue that made them one,
for Kis-se-me-pa and Ka-go-ka could never forget their fearful
encounter with the huge monster that came so near sending them to
the happy hunting-ground.
It is a perplexing business. First, she fell down out of the tree–
she and the blanket; and the bear caught her and fondled her–
her and the blanket; then she fell up into the tree again–
leaving the blanket; meantime the lover goes war-whooping
home and comes back ‘heeled,’ climbs the tree, jumps down on
the bear, the girl jumps down after him–apparently, for she
was up the tree–resumes her place in the bear’s arms along
with the blanket, the lover rams his knife into the bear,
and saves–whom, the blanket? No–nothing of the sort.
You get yourself all worked up and excited about that blanket,
and then all of a sudden, just when a happy climax seems
imminent you are let down flat–nothing saved but the girl.
Whereas, one is not interested in the girl; she is not
the prominent feature of the legend. Nevertheless, there you
are left, and there you must remain; for if you live
a thousand years you will never know who got the blanket.
A dead man could get up a better legend than this one.
I don’t mean a fresh dead man either; I mean a man that’s been dead
weeks and weeks.
We struck the home-trail now, and in a few hours were in that
astonishing Chicago–a city where they are always rubbing the lamp,
and fetching up the genii, and contriving and achieving new impossibilities.
It is hopeless for the occasional visitor to try to keep up with Chicago–
she outgrows his prophecies faster than he can make them.
She is always a novelty; for she is never the Chicago you saw when you
passed through the last time. The Pennsylvania road rushed us to New
York without missing schedule time ten minutes anywhere on the route;
and there ended one of the most enjoyable five-thousand-mile journeys I have
ever had the good fortune to make.
APPENDIX A
(FROM THE NEW ORLEANS TIMES DEMOCRAT OF MARCH 29, 1882.)
VOYAGE OF THE TIMES-DEMOCRAT’S RELIEF BOAT THROUGH THE INUNDATED
REGIONS
IT was nine o’clock Thursday morning when the ‘Susie’
left the Mississippi and entered Old River, or what is
now called the mouth of the Red. Ascending on the left,
a flood was pouring in through and over the levees on
the Chandler plantation, the most northern point in Pointe
Coupee parish. The water completely covered the place,
although the levees had given way but a short time before.
The stock had been gathered in a large flat-boat, where,
without food, as we passed, the animals were huddled together,
waiting for a boat to tow them off. On the right-hand side
of the river is Turnbull’s Island, and on it is a large plantation
which formerly was pronounced one of the most fertile in the State.
The water has hitherto allowed it to go scot-free in usual floods,
but now broad sheets of water told only where fields were.
The top of the protecting levee could be seen here and there,