“One day they learned that a new army of white men was coming, so a band carrying the treasures of the temple with them started by a roundabout route to join the distant community. They marched through their passage to a deep meadow where they expected to find an opening by which they could continue their journey, but they discovered that a solid wall rose in front of them and that behind it a stream had formed a good-sized lake. Some of the men went to locate a route around this. While the others waited, the white men appeared with their guns, armor, horses and blood thirsty dogs. They destroyed the band, took the treasure, and being unfamiliar with the country, started their horses up the cliffs, which were rugged and appeared possible to ascend. In the struggle and the scrambling, stones were loosened, a stream burst through and the entire wall gave way, killing them all.”
“But that was hundreds of years ago,” protested Jim.
“Yes, over four hundred,” Donald replied. “The men of the band who went in search of a passage met a party of hunters from the new community. Their prophets had foreseen the disaster and these men were on their way to help their people if they could. When they reached the spot they saw the destruction which had been wrought and grieved deeply, for among the dead were many of their own relatives.”
“Pretty tough,” said Bob.
“One of the old prophets from the temple was with the party. They spent three days at the lake, fasting and praying to the sun, then they cursed the site, the Black Woods, all that was in it, and all that came into it. As they prayed the heavens grew dark, although it was day; a great comet shot across the sky, leaving a long pathway of green light which did not fade for many hours. By this sign the men knew that their prayers were answered. They cursed the place again, willed that the spirits of their slaughtered companions should return every year through all time as long as the white butterflies passed over the land to the sea; that the white men who had destroyed the band should repeat their crime and again take their punishment as meted out to them by the stored-up waters of the lake.”
“Whew,” exploded Bradshaw and he mopped his forehead.
“They further willed that any man who deliberately forced himself into the woods and under the butterflies should find destruction before the moon changed,” the boy went on solemnly. “That while the spirits of those men of the temple walked the earth, if one of them gazed on a white man, met his eyes, that man should go mad, should live the life of an animal, so that no animal should injure him, but he should burrow in the ground for shelter as long as he lived, and that he should thus pass a span of years equal to the life time of three men—”
“Good God,” whispered Ruhel.
“They surely made a good job of it while they were at it,” Jim said softly.
“The last we saw of Mills, he was digging in,” added Bob, and there was no mirth in his tone.