Starting from his slumbers like an arrow from the bow, Nekumonta cast off the dream-god and stood in the first light of the smiling face of the Great Spirit as he came from his wigwam to open the new day. Swiftly his glance darted from side to side, searching in vain every tree and bush, every rock and stone for evidence of the presence of some one who could have uttered the words that had come so distinctly that they must be more than the echo of a dream. The practiced eye and ear of the hunter could discover nothing unusual in the forest, though every faculty was awake, every nerve strung to its greatest tension. With sadness and loss of hope his attitude relaxed, and with heavy footsteps he turned toward the hills.
And yet he could not go away. Something sent him back to the little opening in the forest, and when he reached the spot where he had fallen in the darkness the night before he bent suddenly and placed his ear to the ground.
What caused Nekumonta to leap to his feet with a cry of triumph that rang over the hills like the shout of many warriors? What changed in an instant the hopeless, dejected being who bent to the earth, to a creature alert, with his hardened sinews standing out upon his body in eagerness to expend its stifled strength? Faintly, yet distinctly, he had again heard the murmuring voices:
"Strong and brave chief of the Mohawks, here are the healing waters of the Great Spirit. Take us from our prison and thy loved Shanewis shall live."
With a bound like that of the panther Nekumonta sprang to the hillside, and from the trunk of a hardy ash that had been felled by the lightning's bolt he tore the toughened branches, bearing them in triumph to the valley. Back he ran like the wind and from the yielding soil dug armfuls of sharp-edged stones, which he bore with hurrying steps to the place where a promise had been opened to him greater than the one of the Happy Hunting-Grounds. Not a moment did he pause, but the cry of "Shanewis! Shanewis! Shanewis!" was almost constantly on his lips.
The smiling face of the Great Spirit rose higher in the path it followed for the day, and looked down over the hill tops at the toiling Nekumonta. Forcing the toughened limbs of the ash tree deep into the ground he wrested from their beds the huge bowlders that impeded his progress and formed the prison of the healing waters. With the sharp-edged stones he cut the hard earth, and with torn and bleeding hands he hurled the rough soil from the excavation. Like a very god incarnate the dauntless spirit toiled—never resting, never tiring, never stopping except at long intervals, when he bent his ear to the earth. Each time he heard the voices, swelling louder and louder, and repeating over and over again the promise that lent him an energy that could have torn the earth asunder had it refused to yield its life-giving treasure for the light of his wigwam.
When the smiling face of the Great Spirit had reached the middle of its trail and turned once more to the door of his great lodge, the tireless Nekumonta leaped to the edge of the excavation with renewed shouts of joy and triumph, and the woods resounded with the laughter and songs proclaiming that the imprisoning barrier had been broken open. The sparkling, healing waters heard the welcome voices in the woods, and rising from their dark prison filled all the place the toiler had torn open in the earth, and then ran merrily down the valley in the sunlight.
Nekumonta bathed his bruised hands and burning face in the grateful waters and then hurried away in the forest. On and on he ran, with a step so light that the dead leaves scarcely felt its touch, and with a strength that laughed the wind to scorn. His path was straight through the forest to the clay banks where his people came in the moon of the falling leaves and made the vessels in which they cooked their corn and venison. Here his energy was born anew, and with a skill that was marvelous in its dexterity he fashioned a jar to contain the healing waters. From its hiding place he brought the fire stone, and the store of branches collected by the old men and children at the last moon of falling leaves furnished him a supply of fuel. When the smiling face of the Great Spirit entered the door of his wigwam in the west Nekumonta took from the dying embers the perfected result of his handiwork.
* * * * *
The warm winds, laden with hope and comfort, stole gently through the forest and sang with gladness of the death of winter. Life came once more to the swaying branches of the trees, and the first notes of the robins and blue birds thrilled the listening air with a sweetness for which it had long hungered. The second day of spring had dawned on the home of the Mohawks the village where the gaunt figure of the awful plague had reveled in a dance of death throughout the weary moons of winter.