“Her spirit, * * wandering * * to the Half Dome, there to linger for a moment.”
As she flew away a soft down from her wings fell upon the earth; and where it fell, along the edge of the river and over the meadows stretching toward Tu-tock-ah-nu-lah’s watch-tower, one can now find tiny white violets, whose fragrance is the secret of a loving spirit, a breath of happiness to all who gather them.
When Tu-tock-ah-nu-lah found that Tis-sa-ack was gone, a great sadness came upon him. Day and night his sighs swept through the pine trees. He puffed gloomily at his pipe until his tower was hidden in a cloud of smoke. At last, thinking to follow and find his lost love, he went away; and lest he be forgotten, he carved with his hunting-knife the outlines of his face upon the wall of his fortress, which the white man has named El Capitan.
As he turned sadly from his lodge, Tu-tock-ah-nu-lah perceived that the air was filled with a rare and subtle perfume, blowing from a stretch of meadow fringed with tamarack. Thinking it the breath of Tis-sa-ack, he followed on and on, forgetful of the arts of E-ee-ke-no, who dwells among the water-lilies in the lake which the Three Brothers hold in the hollow of their hands.
E-ee-ke-no had long loved the Rock Chief, but Tu-tock-ah-nu-lah scorned her unsought love, which turned through jealousy to bitter hate. Now as she saw him go away in search of Tis-sa-ack, she threw around him the mystic fragrance of the water-lily, which, gentle as a caress, is deadly to all who win the hatred of E-ee-ke-no.
On and on across the meadow fringed with tamarack, among the wild flowers and the waving grasses, Tu-tock-ah-nu-lah wandered, following blindly the transformed spirit of E-ee-ke-no until he disappeared forever in the depths of the lake.
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