🧚 The Feast of the Virgins., part 6

'Tis midnight.1 The rising moon gleams, weird and still o'er the dusky horizon; Through the hushed, somber forest she beams, and fitfully gloams on the meadows; And a dim, glimmering pathway she paves, at times, on the dark stretch of river.2 The winds are asleep in the caves --in the heart of the far-away mountains; And here on the meadows and there, the lazy mists gather and hover; And the lights of the Fen-Spirits [72] flare and dance on the low-lying marshes, As still as the footsteps of death by the bed of the babe and its mother; And hushed are the pines, and beneath lie the weary limbed boatmen in slumber.3 Walk softly,--walk softly, O Moon, through the gray, broken clouds in thy pathway, For the earth lies asleep, and the boon of repose is bestowed on the weary.4 Toiling hands have forgotten their care; e'en the brooks have forgotten to murmur; But hark!--there's a sound on the air! --'tis the light-rustling robes of the Spirits.5 Like the breath of the night in the leaves, or the murmur of reeds on the river, In the cool of the mid-summer eves, when the blaze of the day has descended.6 Low-crouching and shadowy forms, as still as the gray morning's footsteps, Creep sly as the serpent that charms, on her nest in the meadow, the plover; In the shadows of pine-trunks they creep, but their panther-eyes gleam in the fire-light, As they peer on the white men asleep, in the glow of the fire, on their blankets.7 Lo, in each swarthy right hand a knife, in the left hand, the bow and the arrows!8 Brave Frenchmen! awake to the strife! --or you sleep in the forest forever.9 Nay, nearer and nearer they glide, like ghosts on the fields of their battles, Till close on the sleepers, they bide but the signal of death from Tamdóka.10 Still the sleepers sleep on.11 Not a breath stirs the leaves of the awe-stricken forest; The hushed air is heavy with death; like the footsteps of death are the moments. "12 _Arise_!"--At the word, with a bound, to their feet spring the vigilant Frenchmen; And the dark, dismal forests resound to the crack and the roar of their rifles; And seven writhing forms on the ground clutch the earth.13 From the pine-tops the screech owl Screams and flaps his wide wings in affright, and plunges away through the shadows; And swift on the wings of the night flee the dim, phantom forms of the spirit.14 Like cabris [80] when white wolves pursue, fled the four yet remaining Dakotas; Through forest and fen-land they flew, and wild terror howled on their footsteps.15 And one was Tamdóka.16 DuLuth through the night sent his voice like a trumpet; "Ye are Sons of Unktéhee, forsooth!17 Return to your mothers, ye cowards!"18 His shrill voice they heard as they fled, but only the echoes made answer.19 At the feet of the brave Frenchmen, dead, lay seven swarthy Sons of Unktéhee; And there, in the midst of the slain, they found, as it gleamed in the fire light, The horn-handled knife from the Seine, where it fell from the hand of Tamdóka.20

In the gray of the morn, ere the sun peeped over the dewy horizon, Their journey again was begun, and they toiled up the swift, winding river; And many a shallow they passed on their way to the Lake of the Spirits; But dauntless they reached it at last, and found Akee-pá-kee-tin's village, [a] On an isle in the midst of the lake; and a day in his teepee they tarried.21

[a] see Hennepin's account of Aqui-pa-que-tin and his village.22 Shea's Hennepin 227.23

Of the deed in the wilderness spake, to the brave Chief, the frank-hearted Frenchman.24 A generous man was the Chief and a friend of the fearless explorer; And dark was his visage with grief at the treacherous act of the warriors. "25 Brave Wazi-Kuté is a man, and his heart is as clear as the sun-light; But the head of a treacherous clan, and a snake in the bush is Tamdóka," Said the chief; and he promised Duluth, on the word of a friend and a warrior, To carry the pipe and the truth to his cousin, the chief at Kathága; For thrice at the Tânka Medé had he smoked in the lodge of the Frenchman; And thrice had he carried away the bountiful gifts of the trader.26

When the chief could no longer prevail on the white men to rest in his teepee, He guided their feet on the trail to the lakes of the winding Rice-River.27 [a] Now on speeds the light bark canoe, through the lakes to the broad Gitchee Seebee; [b] And up the great river they row, --up the Big Sandy Lake and Savanna; And down through the meadows they go to the river of broad Gitchee Gumee.28 [c]29

[a] Now called "Mud River"--it empties into the Mississippi at Aitkin.30

[b] _Gitchee seebee_--Big River--the Ojibway name for the Mississippi, which is a corruption of Gitchee Seebee--as Michigan is a corruption of _Gitchee Gumee_--Great Lake, the Ojibway name of Lake Superior.31

[c] The Ojibways call the St. Louis River _Gitchee-Gumee See-bee--Great-lake River_, i.e. the river of the Great Lake (Lake Superior).32

Still onward they speed to the Dalles --to the roar of the white-rolling rapids, Where the dark river tumbles and falls down the ragged ravine of the mountains, And singing his wild jubilee to the low-moaning pines and the cedars, Rushes on to the unsalted sea o'er the ledges upheaved by volcanoes.33 Their luggage the _voyageurs_ bore down the long, winding path of the portage, [a] While they mingled their song with the roar of the turbid and turbulent waters.34 Down-wimpling and murmuring there, twixt two dewy hills winds a streamlet, Like a long, flaxen ringlet of hair on the breast of a maid in her slumber.35

[a] The route of Duluth above described--from the mouth of the Wild Rice Mud River to Lake Superior--was for centuries and still is, the Indians' canoe route.36 I have walked over the old portage from the foot of the Dalles to the St. Louis above--trod by the feet of half-breeds and _voyageurs_ for more than two centuries, and by the Indians for, perhaps, a thousand years.37

All safe at the foot of the trail, where they left it, they found their felucca, And soon to the wind spread the sail, and glided at ease through the waters, Through the meadows and lakelets and forth, round the point stretching south like a finger, From the mist-wreathen hill on the north, sloping down to the bay and the lake-side And behold, at the foot of the hill, a cluster of Chippewa wigwams, And the busy wives plying with skill their nets in the emerald waters.38 Two hundred white winters and more have fled from the face of the Summer Since DuLuth, on that wild, somber shore, in the unbroken forest primeval, From the midst of the spruce and the pines, saw the smoke of the wigwams up-curling, Like the fumes from the temples and shrines of the Druids of old in their forests.39 Ah, little he dreamed then, forsooth, that a city would stand on that hill-side, And bear the proud name of Duluth, the untiring and dauntless explorer.40 A refuge for ships from the storms, and for men from the bee-hives of Europe.41 Out-stretching her long, iron arms o'er an empire of Saxons and Normans.42

The swift west-wind sang in the sails, and on flew the boat like a Sea-Gull, By the green, templed hills and the dales, and the dark rugged rocks of the North Shore; For the course of the brave Frenchman lay to his fort at the Gáh-mah-na-ték-wáhk, [83] By the shore of the grand Thunder Bay, where the gray rocks loom up into mountains; Where the Stone Giant sleeps on the Cape, and the god of the storms makes the thunder, [83] And the Makinak [83] lifts his huge shape from the breast of the blue-rolling waters, And thence to the south-westward led his course to the Holy Ghost Mission.43 [84] Where the Black Robes, the brave shepherds, fed their wild sheep on the isle Wau-ga-bá-mé.44 [84]45