They have turned him off the road as soon as the noise was heard. But he will not turn back or go home. He is sent after you by another Indian who conjured him up out of the deep (the bottom of some flood). But be not too uneasy. If these four will not do, there are yet a vast many of us, so that between us all, we shall drive him back. We will perplex and bewilder him, surround, torment and tease him on every side. But he is of a monstrous size, ferocious and withal enraged against you. The task is mighty difficult. Observe! See how beautifully serene the night is. If we succeed, the sky will change all of a sudden, and there will fall a very smart shower of snow attended with a terrible gust of wind. This will happen between daylight and sunrise and is his spirit, all that will remain in his power. He'll then return to his home.
The interpreter, though he laughed at all this and could not bring himself to credit it, yet swears that he heard the rumbling noise on their road and seemingly far off. The Indians gave implicit faith to all. And the conjurer did not know what to believe.
"There is something," says he, "for my Dreamed, or Dreamers have assured me of it, but I don't know what to say. However, most assuredly, tomorrow morning we shall have the snow."
This snow both comforted and depressed the poor Indian very much seeing the weather was then so beautiful and so destitute of all the usual signs of bad weather. It did snow. It came as foretold, quite suddenly, and as suddenly became fine again.
In the ensuing morning, the Indian begged of the interpreter to chuse one of the longest and straightest pine (epinette) trees he could find of the thickness of his thigh, to peel off all the bark nicely, leaving but a small tuft of the branches at the tip end. This they painted cross-ways with bars of vermillion and charcoal alternately the whole length, leaving however some intervals undaubded. And about five or six feet from the ground, [they] fastened a pair of artificial horns representing those of a bull, and decorated [it] with ribbon. He also (the Indian I mean) made the sweating hut, and in short done [sic] everything as directed, after which he (the Indian) became to resume his wonted cheerfulness and contentment.
However, once more he was obliged to have recourse again to the conjurer, from hearing another rumbling noise. "Thou Fool!" answered the spirits. "Wilt thou never have done tormenting thyself and disquieting us. That rumbling noise proceeds from the ice on a lake a long way off. It is only the ice. Be therefore peaceable. I shall [advise] thee if any ill is to happen thee."
The flashes of light, or those sudden glares that the Indian inquired of the spirits, is, as they told him, lightening which always happens in the month of December. And they laughed at his having lived so long without observing it before.
The conjurer had lost his smoking bag one day that he was out a hunting. And as it contained his only steel and not a small part of his winter stock of tobacco, he was very uneasy and hunted several times for it. They, having told the Interpreter often how kind and charitable and indulgent those spirits of the upper regions were, and he, desirous of proving them, told the conjurer to send for his bag. He asked, "Which of ye will go for my bag that I lost? He that brings it me, I shall make him smoke."
"I will go," said one. They heard a fluttering noise, and soon after they heard the same fluttering noise, and the rattler move, and down fell the bag by the conjurer, covered with snow.
"How stupid thou art!" said the spirit naming the conjurer. "Thou passedst over it and yet did not see it." It was a long time since the bag was lost, and the distance was several miles.