第148章 Speculations and Conclusions(3)

He began his weird,wild love-song,but soon felt that he was cold,and as he reached back for his blanket,some unseen hand laid it gently on his shoulders;it was the hand of his love,his guardian angel.

She took her place beside him,and for the present they were happy;for the Indian has a heart to love,and in this pride he is as noble as in his own freedom,which makes him the child of the forest.

As the legend runs,a large white-bear,thinking,perhaps,that polar snows and dismal winter weather extended everywhere,took up his journey southward.

He at length approached the northern shore of the lake which now bears his name,walked down the bank and made his way noiselessly through the deep heavy snow toward the island.It was the same spring ensuing that the lovers met.They had left their first retreat,and were now seated among the branches of a large elm which hung far over the lake.

(The same tree is still standing,and excites universal curiosity and interest.)For fear of being detected,they talked almost in a whisper,and now,that they might get back to camp in good time and thereby avoid suspicion,they were just rising to return,when the maiden uttered a shriek which was heard at the camp,and bounding toward the young brave,she caught his blanket,but missed the direction of her foot and fell,bearing the blanket with her into the great arms of the ferocious monster.

Instantly every man,woman,and child of the band were upon the bank,but all unarmed.Cries and wailings went up from every mouth.

What was to be done'?In the meantime this white and savage beast held the breathless maiden in his huge grasp,and fondled with his precious prey as if he were used to scenes like this.One deafening yell from the lover warrior is heard above the cries of hundreds of his tribe,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.