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The strange water-worn rocks, the islands of soft pipe-stone from which are cut the bowls for many a calumet, the curious masses of ore resting on the polished surface of rock, the islands struck yearly by lightning, the islands which abound in lizards although these reptiles are scarce elsewhere all these make the Lake of the Woods a region abounding in Indian legend and superstition.
Those that remained in the sack found a beautiful land a great plateau covered with mighty forests, through which elk, deer, and antelope roamed in abundance, and many mountain-sheep were found on the bordering crags; piv, the nuts of the edible pine, they found on the foot-hills, and us, the fruit of the yucca, in sunny glades; and nänt, the meschal crowns, for their feasts; and tcu-ar, the cactus-apple, from which to make their wine; reeds grew about the lakes for their arrow-shafts; the rocks were full of flints for their barbs and knives, and away down, in the cañon they found a pipe-stone quarry, and on the hills they found är-a-ûm-pĭv, their tobacco.
At last the long river was passed, and there on the opposite shore lay the cart track to Fort Pitt. We were close to Pipe-stone Creek, and only three miles from the Fort. It was ten o'clock when we reached the closely-barred gate of this Hudson Bay post, the inhabitants of which had gone to bed. Ten o'clock at night, and we had started at six o'clock in the morning.
"There is room by the fire for them," and he motioned to them to sit down by his side. A pipe, composed of a long flat wooden stem studded with brass nails, with a bowl cut out of red pipe-stone, was now handed round, each taking a short puff. "Does my brother speak the language of the Navahoes?" the chief asked in that tongue.
"We never forget our friends," said he. He then gave me a beautiful peace pipe. The stem was two feet long, with animals engraved on it; and the bowl was made from Minnesota pipe-stone rock, inlaid with silver.
The pipe-stone, which is the flesh of their ancestors, is smoked by them as the symbol of peace, and the eagle quills decorate the heads of their warriors. Severed about seven or eight feet from the main wall of the quarry by some convulsion of nature ages ago, there is an immense column just equal in height to the wall, seven feet in diameter and beautifully polished on its top and sides.
The transmission of pipes from the famous Red Pipe-Stone Quarry of the St. Peter's to tribes more than a thousand miles distant is an analogous modern instance, though much less remarkable. The Tache Museum, at the Laval University of Quebec, contains a large collection of remains from these graves. In one instance, the human bones are of a size that may be called gigantic.
Though why they have given me such a name I never knew, there being as little likeness between the gifts of 'killdeer' and the performance of one of your real Canada carabynes, as there is between the natur' of a pipe-stone and a flint." "Keep to your tale," said the impatient Heyward; "we know not at what moment the Hurons may return." "No fear of them.
Within a few rods of the base of the wall is a group of immense gneiss boulders, five in number, weighing probably many hundred tons each, and under these are two holes in which two imaginary old women reside the guardian spirits of the quarry who were always consulted before any pipe-stone could be dug up.
When they had arrived there from all parts of the world, the water continued to rise until it covered them completely, forming one solid mass of drowned Indians, and their flesh was converted by the Great Spirit into red pipe-stone; therefore, it was always considered neutral ground, belonging to all tribes alike, and all were to make their pipes out of it and smoke together.
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