Their women were in their canoes coming over, when suddenly a loud cry was heard from an old woman, the mother of Wenona.
The canoe had nearly reached the shore, and the mother continued to shriek, gazing at the projecting rock.
The Indians eagerly inquired of her what was the matter? "Do you not see my daughter?" she said; "she is standing close to the edge of the rock!"
She was there indeed, loudly and wildly singing her dirge, an invocation to the Spirit of the Rock, calm and unconcerned in her dangerous position, while all was terror and excitement among her friends below her.
The hunters, so soon as they perceived her, hastily ascended the bluff, while her parents called to her and entreated her to go back from the edge of the rock. "Come down to us, my child," they cried; "do not destroy your life; you will kill us, we have no child but you."
Having finished her song, the maiden answered her parents. "You have forced me to leave you. I was always a good daughter, and never disobeyed you; and could I have married the man I love, I should have been happy, and would never have left you. But you have been cruel to me; you have turned my beloved from the wigwam; you would have forced me to marry a man I hated; I go to the house of spirits."
By this time the hunters had nearly reached her. She turned towards them for a moment with a smile of scorn, as if to intimate to them that their efforts were in vain. But when they were quite near, so that they held out their arms towards her in their eagerness to draw her from her dangerous station, she threw herself from the rock.
The first blow she received from the side of the rock must have killed her, for she fell like a dead bird, amidst the shouts of the hunters above, and the shrieks of the women below.
Her body was arrayed in her handsomest clothing, placed upon a scaffold, and afterwards buried.
But the Dahcotahs say that her spirit does not watch over her earthly remains; for her spirit was offended when she brought trouble upon her aged mother and father.