They all lived contented and happy after this, for a length of time. The elder brother's son grew up to manhood, and was noted for his beauty, bravery, and manliness. He was very expert in the chase, and supplied them abundantly with food.
One evening the brothers mentioned their desire of visiting a very high mountain in the vicinity, in order, as they said, to gratify their curiosity, and see the country which lay beyond it. The women tried to dissuade them, and expressed their fears lest some accident might befall them; but their opposition was unavailing. The men prepared to depart, and gave their parting advice to their wives and children, telling them, that should anything serious happen, Owasso's elder son was now fully capable of supporting them, and that the time was not far distant when they should all meet each other in those happy hunting grounds toward the setting sun.
The night after this parting address they left the lodge. It was very dark, still not a breath of air could be felt—when lo! flashes of lightning appeared, and the noise of rumbling thunder was suddenly heard advancing from the north (where their father had gone) and the quietude of the night gave place to one of the most terrible tempests. The dark air was lit up with flashes of vivid and forked lightning, and the roar of that ear-stopping thunder was incessant. At the same time the south wind rushed on with a tremendous noise, laying the most stately trees level with the earth.
The young men never returned, but tradition says that they were taken up by their father from the mountain's top, and aided him in wreaking just vengeance on all Weendigoes and magicians. For it appears that after he was fixed in his ethereal abode, he beheld with horror the bad actions of these wicked men. And he resolved to destroy them, and rid the earth of such monsters, as well as to take vengeance for what he had himself suffered from them. To this end he exerted the power the Great Spirit had given him, by sending thunder and lightning to destroy them all. From this period the Indian world has been free from them. Still the imaginations of our old and young men often dwell upon their former power, and they are led to believe that the hills, and caves, and forests, occupied by these once visible, are still possessed by invisible demons.
[Note. This story, it will be perceived, very much resembles, in some of its incidents, one previously inserted from the Odjibwa. It also embraces one of the principal incidents in the allegory of the "Forsaken Boy," from the same source.]
FOOTNOTES:
[59] Thunder is invariably personified by the Algic Indians. There is no other mode of describing it in their vocabulary.
[60] This taciturnity is characteristic of the American Indians, who seldom speak or manifest any emotion when events of this nature take place in actual life, especially if hard feelings have been excited in either party.