"What are you doing?" asked the Indians.
"I am going to kill a rattlesnake," he said.
"Oh, no! don't do that," they said.
The Indians all got their tobacco bags and pipes, and went to the place where the snake had been seen. It was still lying in a coil.
Grandfather Rattlesnake.
The Indians now stood round the snake, and one after another spoke to it. They called it their grandfather. But they took care not to go too close to their grandfather. They stood oft and filled their pipes with tobacco. Each one in turn blew tobacco smoke at the snake. The snake seemed to like it. For half an hour it lay there in a coil, and breathed the smoke. Then it slowly stretched itself out at full length, and seemed in a very good humor. It was more than four feet long.
After having more smoke blown at it, it slowly crept away. The Indians followed, begging their grandfather, as they called it, to take care of their families while they were gone. They also asked that the snake would open the heart of the English general so that he would give them a great deal of rum. One of the chiefs begged the snake to take no notice of the insult offered to him by the white man, who would have killed it if the Indians had not stopped him. They also begged that it would remain and live in their country.
The Indians thought that the snake was a spirit or god in this form. They thought that it had been sent to stop them on their way. They were almost ready to turn back, but Mr. Henry persuaded them to go on.
The next morning was calm. The Indians took a short course by sailing straight to an island out in the lake. But after they had got far out, the wind began to blow very hard. They expected every moment that their canoe would be swallowed up by the waves. They began to pray to the rattlesnake to help them. One of the chiefs resolved to make a sacrifice to the snake. He took a dog, and tied its legs together, and threw it into the water. He asked the snake spirit to be satisfied with this. But the wind continued to grow higher, and so another dog was thrown into the water, and some tobacco was thrown with it. The chief told Grandfather Snake that the man who wanted to kill him was really a white man, and no kin to the snake or to the Indians.