“Morning Star, her lover, who led the canoe fleet that morning, was among the slain. For two days the Sioux braves searched in the water for their dead, but his body was not recovered.
“At home, meanwhile, the people had been alarmed by ill omens. Winona, eldest daughter of the great chief, one day entered her birch canoe alone and paddled up the Mississippi, gazing now into the water around her, now into the blue sky above. She thought she heard some young men giving courtship calls in the distance, just as they do at night when approaching the teepee of the beloved; and she knew the voice of Morning Star well! Surely she could distinguish his call among the others! Therefore she listened yet more intently, and looked skyward as her light canoe glided gently up stream.
“Ah, poor Winona! She saw only six sandhill cranes, looking no larger than mosquitoes, as they flew in circles high up in the sky, going east where all spirits go. Something said to her: ‘Those are the spirits of some of the Sioux braves, and Morning Star is among them!’ Her eye followed the birds as they traveled in a chain of circles.
“Suddenly she glanced downward. ‘What is this?’ she screamed in despair. It was Morning Star’s body, floating down the river; his quiver, worked by her own hands and now dyed with his blood, lay upon the surface of the water.
“‘Ah, Great Mystery! why do you punish a poor girl so? Let me go with the spirit of Morning Star!’
“It was evening. The pale moon arose in the east and the stars were bright. At this very hour the news of the disaster was brought home by a returning scout, and the village was plunged in grief, but Winona’s spirit had flown away. No one ever saw her again.
“This is enough for to-day, my boy. You may come again to-morrow.”
II. The Stone Boy
“Ho, mita koda!” (welcome, friend!) was Smoky Day’s greeting, as I entered his lodge on the third day. “I hope you did not dream of a watery combat with the Ojibways, after the history I repeated to you yesterday,” the old sage continued, with a complaisant smile playing upon his face.