"Yea, stronger and braver are they,"
said the aged Menard to Winona,
"Than the head-chief, tall Wazi-kute,[74]
but their words are as soft as a maiden's,
Their eyes are the eyes of the swan,
but their hearts are the hearts of the eagles;
And the terrible _Masa Wakan_[R]
ever walks by their side like a spirit;
Like a Thunder-bird, roaring in wrath,
flinging fire from his terrible talons,
He sends to their enemies death
in the flash of the fatal _Wakandee_."[S]
[Q] The Ottawa name for the region of the St. Lawrence River.
[R] "Mysterious metal"--or metal having a spirit in it. This is the
common name applied by the Dakotas to all firearms.
[S] Lightning.
The Autumn was past and the snow
lay drifted and deep on the prairies;
From his _teepee_ of ice came the foe--
came the storm-breathing god of the winter.
Then roared in the groves, on the plains,
on the ice-covered lakes and the river,
The blasts of the fierce hurricanes
blown abroad from the breast of _Waziya_. [3]
The bear cuddled down in his den,
and the elk fled away to the forest;
The pheasant and gray prairie-hen
made their beds in the heart of the snow-drift;
The bison herds huddled and stood
in the hollows and under the hill-sides,
Or rooted the snow for their food
in the lee of the bluffs and the timber;
And the mad winds that howled from the north,
from the ice-covered seas of _Waziya_,
Chased the gray wolf and silver-fox forth
to their dens in the hills of the forest.
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