“It may be a pretty slim chance but I believe it is a chance and I just had to do something.”
“Of course.”
“Don’t you think yourself, sir, that it would be a good place for a man to hide up there?”
“Don’t believe he could find a better. It’s about as wild as you could wish for up there and I don’t suppose there’s a white man lives within fifty or sixty miles of that lake unless it’s some lone trapper. I was up there once many years ago on a hunting trip and I remember we didn’t see a soul for nearly two weeks.”
“Then I’m more than ever inclined to think that he has gone there. He is just the kind of a man who would go off to a place like that and I know he came from somewhere in the northern part of Maine.”
“There’s an old legend connected with that lake,” Mr. Golden told the boys while they were waiting for dinner. “Many years ago a large tribe of Indians lived on the shore of Umsaskis. Moose and deer and bear were very plentiful and the tribe was wealthy and happy. Big Foot was chief and White Flower, his daughter was the pride of the tribe. Straight as an arrow she was and she could outrun and outshoot, with the bow and arrow, any member of the tribe.
“Many a hopeful young buck came to match his skill with the bow and arrow and his speed both in running and in paddling the canoe against her for it was known that she had vowed that she would wed only her master in these fetes. But one and all they went away sorrowful, for her arrows always struck nearer the mark than theirs and so swift were her feet that although she even gave them considerable start never was the race more than half run before she had passed them. And it is related how she would paddle her light birch canoe many lengths beyond the outer mark set for the race and then beat her dusky wooer in by a long margin.
“Then one day in mid-summer came Spotted Tail from a tribe far to the west with a message for Big Foot. Never was such an Indian as Spotted Tail. Cast in a perfect mold he was as beautiful a man as was White Flower a woman. It was a case of love at first sight when they met. For two days Spotted Tail rested before pitting his strength and skill against her whom he would wed.
“First came the shooting with the bow and arrow. Frowns of disapproval settled on the brows of many when White Flower’s arrow just brushed the thin reed with the tip of the feather which guided its flight and they watched her with hostile eyes when a moment later the arrow of Spotted Tail split the same reed in two. Did her eyes light up with hope? Who can tell?
“Then came the foot race. When she motioned her lover to take the customary fifty feet start loud grunts of disapproval were heard on all sides and, being appealed to, Big Foot ruled that they should start together. Did White Flower run with less than her usual swiftness or was Spotted Tail really her master? Who could tell. But it was evident that many suspected her when Spotted Tail crossed the line a full foot ahead of her and she threw herself panting onto the ground.