"And your missionaries told me I must believe in their God!" he went on scornfully. "A God who permits white men to do things the God of the Indians forbids! I said to them:
"'No. I am an Indian. A good Indian is better than a good white man; he is a better Christian, as you call it. And between bad Indians and bad white men there is only a difference in kinds of evil.'"
A warrior entered to report on a mission to a near-by village, and our conversation lapsed. I was to remember it many times in the future and especially during the adventures which were immediately before me.
The next day we started upon the march to Jagara. We had not gone very far on the morning of the second day of our journey when I began to hear what sounded like a muffled roar, not thunder, but the bellowings of some gigantic monster, whose breath could ruffle the trees of the forest. Ta-wan-ne-ars, who had regained his customary good spirits with the prospect of danger and hardship, smiled at my obvious bewilderment.
"'Tis the voice of the Great Falls, brother," he said. "The Thunder Waters."
"Does water make that noise?" I exclaimed.
"Nothing but water."
"'Tis impossible."
"So many have said; and, indeed, the missionaries told me 'twas one of the greatest wonders of the world."
In the early afternoon a mist appeared, overhanging the treetops on the horizon and shot with gorgeous rainbows. The volume of noise increased. It was not deafening. You could speak and converse with ease as you approached it; but it dominated you, made you conscious of a power beyond human effort to subdue.