"Why? what? what? Who's dead?"
"Who's dead?" repeated they, looking up in astonishment. "Why, you're dead! you were drowned in Swan Lake! Did not we find your blanket there? Come, sit down and help us mourn."
The old man did not wait for a second invitation. He took his seat and cried and drank with the rest, weeping and lamenting as bitterly as any of them, and the strange scene was continued as long as they had power to articulate, or any portion of the whiskey was left.
CHAPTER XXIX.
STORY OF THE RED FOX.
The Indians, of whatever tribe, are exceedingly fond of narrating or listening to tales and stories, whether historical or fictitious. They have their professed storytellers, like the Oriental nations, and these go about, from village to village, collecting an admiring and attentive audience, however oft-told and familiar the matter they recite.
It is in this way that their traditions are preserved and handed down unimpaired from generation to generation. Their knowledge of the geography of their country is wonderfully exact. I have seen an Indian sit in his lodge, and draw a map, in the ashes, of the Northwestern States, not of their statistical but their geographical features, lakes, rivers, and mountains, with the greatest accuracy, giving their relative distances, by days' journeys, without hesitation, and even extending his drawings and explanations as far as Kentucky and Tennessee.
Of biography they preserve not only the leading events in the life of the person, but his features, appearance, and bearing, his manners, and whatever little trait or peculiarity characterized him.
The women are more fond of fiction, and some of their stories have a strange mingling of humor and pathos. I give the two which follow as specimens. The Indian names contained in them are in the Ottawa or "Courte-Oreilles" language, but the same tales are current in all the different tongues and dialects.
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