XVIII
THE DEATH OF KWASIND
THE name and fame of Kwasind, the strong man, had spread among all tribes of Indians, and in all the world there was nobody who dared to wrestle or to strive with this mighty friend of Hiawatha. But the little pigmy people, the mischievous Puk-Wudjies, plotted against Kwasind, for they were very much afraid of him, and thought he would destroy them.
"If this great fellow goes on breaking whatever he touches, tearing things to pieces and filling the whole world with wonder at his deeds, what will happen to us?" cried the Little People; "what will become of the Puk-Wudjies? He will step on us as if we were mushrooms; he will drive us into the water, and give our bodies to the wicked Nee-ba-naw-baigs to be eaten." And all the Little People plotted to murder the cruel and wicked, dangerous, heartless Kwasind.
There was one secret about Kwasind that nobody on earth knew, except himself and the clever Little People. All his strength and all his weakness came from the crown of his head. Nowhere but on the crown of his head could any weapon do him harm, and even there nothing would hurt him except the blue seed-cone that grows upon the fir-tree. The Little People had discovered this by their great skill in magic, and they gathered together the blue cones of the fir-tree and piled them in great heaps upon the red rock ledges that overhung the river Taquamenaw. There they sat and waited until Kwasind should pass by in his canoe.
It was a hot summer afternoon when Kwasind, the strong man, in his birch canoe came floating slowly down the Taquamenaw. The air was very still and very warm; the insects buzzed and hummed above the silent water, and the locust sang from the dry, sweet-smelling bushes on the shore.
In Kwasind's ears there was a drowsy murmur, and he felt the spirits of sleep beat upon his forehead with their soft little war-clubs. At the first blow his head nodded with slumber; at the second blow his paddle trailed motionless in the water, and at the third his eyes closed and he went fast asleep, sitting bolt upright in his canoe. The warm air quivered on the water, the midges and the gnats sang in tiny voices, and the locust once more struck up his shrill tune from the river bank, when the sentinels of the Little People went scampering down the beach, calling out shrilly that Kwasind was sound asleep in his canoe and drifting nearer and nearer to the fatal red rocks that overhung the river. And all the Little People climbed the rocks and peered down upon the water, waiting until Kwasind should pass beneath.
At last the canoe swung sideways around a bend in the river and came drifting down the slow-moving current as lightly as an alder-leaf, and the Little People moved the fir-cones nearer to the edge and crouched there waiting.
"Death to Kwasind!" they shouted in little voices as the canoe glided underneath the rocks, "Death to Kwasind!" and they rained down showers of blue fir-cones right on the defenseless head of the sleeping giant.