Chemanitou gathered together a vast heap of stones and sand, for large rocks are not to be had upon the island, and stopped the mouth of the cave. Many days passed and the noise within the cave grew louder. The earth shook, and hot smoke came from the ground. The manitoes crowded to Metowac to see what was the matter.
Chemanitou came also, for he remembered the image he had cast in there of which he had forgotten to take away the life.
Suddenly there was a great rising of the stones and sand, the sky grew black with wind and dust. Fire played about on the ground, and water gushed high into the air.
All the manitoes fled with fear, and the image came forth with a great noise and most terrible to behold. Its life had grown strong within it, for the fire had made it very fierce.
Everything fled before it and cried—
“Machinitou! machinitou,” which means a god, but an evil god.
THE WOMAN OF STONE.
In one of the niches or recesses formed by a precipice in the cavern of Kickapoo Creek, which is a tributary of the Wisconsin, there is a gigantic mass of stone presenting the appearance of a human figure. It is so sheltered by the overhanging rocks and by the sides of the recess in which it stands as to assume a dark and gloomy character. Of the figure the following legend is related:—