This rocky wedge, set between the lake and the cataract, was covered with trees, and, excepting at the upper end in the smooth river, its sides were steep and water-worn. I noticed that as soon as we came in sight of this wooded isle Red Cloud’s usually passive face wore a look of unwonted interest.
I inquired if he knew the spot.
“Know it?” he replied. “Yes, it is the only place I can call my home in all this great wilderness. To-morrow we shall reach it, and then you will know why I call it my home.”
We camped that evening near the spot where the river came out of the lake. There was a clump of pine-trees close at hand, and before night had closed in the well-wielded axes of the Sioux and the Iroquois had felled some dead trees, and lopped their trunks into lengths of twelve feet.
Early next morning, they had put together a small raft. Dropping down stream on this raft, Red Cloud landed alone on the little island. I had rambled off to the upper end of the lake while the morning was yet young; when I got back to camp I found the Sioux had returned, and that a small canoe was moored to the river bank, where the raft had been built.
Our mid-day meal over, Red Cloud asked me to visit the island with him. He dropped down the stream as before, and steered dexterously into the small spot of quiet water which lay at the head of the island. I then noticed what before I had not seen, that this quiet water was of very limited extent, and that the current on either side of it ran with a speed that became momentarily of greater velocity as it drew nearer the rapid. I saw in fact that it required knowledge of the spot, and skill in the use of the paddle, to hit off this little eddy of waters.
A small indentation between two rocks gave shelter to our canoe, and also held the raft which Red Cloud had built during the morning. The canoe he had found on the island. We landed on the rock, fastened the canoe to a tree, and struck into the forest that covered the entire space. I could tell by the increasing sound of the waterfall, that we were approaching the end of the island which overhung the cataract. We soon reached this spot; a few old pine-trees grew upon it; the density of their branches had destroyed the undergrowth, and the ground between the massive trunks was clear of brushwood. In the centre of this clear space, shadowed by the sombre arms of these old pines, there was a solitary mound. Red Cloud stood before it.
“It is my father’s grave,” he said. “Eight years ago I carried his bones all that long way from where he was killed to this distant spot. I had intended bearing them with me wherever I wandered as an ever-present reminder of the oath I had sworn, but on first seeing this spot I selected it as a resting-place. Here I made my home; hither have I come when, baffled by my enemy, I have sought for a time rest for myself and my horses; and again from here have I gone forth to seek my enemy, only to find him always too strong or too cunning for me.”