"Look!" said Minnehaha, as the Fever drew still closer to her bed. "I see my father standing in his doorway. I see him beckoning to me from his wigwam!"
"Ah no, my child," said Nokomis sadly; "it is nothing but the smoke of our fire curling upward to the smoke-flue."
"Oh," said Minnehaha, "I see the eyes of Death glaring at me in the darkness! I feel his icy fingers clasping mine! Hiawatha! Hiawatha!"
The wretched Hiawatha, miles away in the dark forest, heard Minnehaha cry to him and he hurried homeward with a sinking heart, but before he reached his wigwam he heard the voice of Nokomis wailing through the night. What a sight met his eyes as he burst into his dreary lodge! Nokomis was rocking sadly to and fro, moaning and weeping; and Minnehaha lay, cold and dead, upon her bed of branches!
Hiawatha gave such a cry of sorrow that the forest shuddered and groaned, and even the stars in heaven trembled. Then he sat down at the feet of Minnehaha, and covered his face with both his hands. Seven days and nights he sat there without moving or speaking, and he did not know whether it was night or day.
At last he rose and wrapped Minnehaha in her softest robes of ermine, and they made a grave for her in the snow beneath the hemlock trees. Four nights they kindled a fire on her grave, so that her soul might have cheerful light upon its journey to the Blessed Islands, and Hiawatha watched from the doorway of his wigwam to see that the fire was burning brightly so she might never be left in darkness, and he said: "Farewell, my Minnehaha! My heart is buried with you, and before long my task here will be finished and I will join you in the Blessed Islands. Soon I shall follow in your footsteps to the Land of Hereafter!"