THE STONE GIANT'S CHALLENGE.
A Stone Giant challenged a Seneca chief to a race. The challenge was accepted, and the time for the start appointed two days later.
The hunter employed the time in making a pair of moccasins, and in due time the race began. The hunter was in advance; he led the way over cornfields and through bushes, over and around brooks, and went a weary distance until he was very tired and his moccasins were nearly worn off his feet. At last he began to climb rocks. Now, the Stone Giant had no power to raise his head and could not tell where the hunter was when once he was above him, and in this dilemma he had recourse to a charm, and took from his pocket a human finger. He placed it upright upon his hand, and it immediately pointed the way for him to go.
Now, the hunter had turned and seen him do it, so he stooped and snatched the charm from him, whereupon the giant commenced crying and said: "You have won. You have taken my charm, and now you can always find game and all you want, for the finger will direct you to it."
HIAWATHA AND THE IROQUOIS WAMPUM.
In one of his missions into the country of the Mohawks, Hiawatha once came upon the borders of a lake. While deliberating in what manner he should cross it, the whole sky became filled with wild ducks, all of which finally alighted upon the surface of the water. After quenching their thirst and soaking their plumage they ascended again into the air in one great mass, and lo! the lake had become dry, while its bed was filled with shells.
From these the wise chief and counselor proceeded to make the wampum which afterward so firmly cemented the union of the six tribes, thereby forming the great Iroquois Confederacy.
CHAPTER II.
PIGMIES.
Another creation of the fertile Indian fancy consists of the race of pigmies, Lilliputian in size, but mighty in skill and deed. They carved out the beauties of rock, cliff, and cave, but also, like Hi-nuⁿ, they were endowed with the mightier power of destroying the monster animals which endangered the life of man. Cliff, rock, and grotto attested the skill of that departed race, and the exhumed bones of giant animals bore as perfect witness to the truth of their existence as did the "Homo diluvii testis" of a century ago to the truth of the story of the deluge.