stirs the leaves of the awe-stricken forest;
The hushed air is heavy with death;
          like the footsteps of death are the moments.
“Arise!”—­At the word, with a bound,
          to their feet spring the vigilant Frenchmen;
And the depths of the forest resound
          to the crack and the roar of their rifles;
And seven writhing forms on the ground
          clutch the earth.  From the pine-tops the screech-owl
Screams and flaps his wide wings in affright,
          and plunges away through the shadows;
And swift on the wings of the night
          flee the dim, phantom-forms through the darkness. 
Like cabris[80] when white wolves pursue,
          fled the four yet remaining Dakotas;
Through forest and fen-land they flew,
          and wild terror howled on their footsteps. 
And one was Tamdoka.  DuLuth
          through the night sent his voice like a trumpet: 
“Ye are Sons of Unktehee, forsooth! 
          Return to your mothers, ye cowards!”
His shrill voice they heard as they fled,
          but only the echoes made answer. 
At the feet of the brave Frenchmen, dead,
          lay seven swarthy Sons of whitehead;
And there, in the midst of the slain,
          they found, as it gleamed in the fire-light,
The horn-handled knife from the Seine,
          where it fell from the hand of Tamdoka.

[Illustration:  NEARER AND NEARER THEY GLIDE LIKE GHOSTS ON THE FIELDS OF THEIR BATTLES.  TILL CLOSE ON THE SLEEPERS, THEY BIDE FOR THE SIGNAL OF DEATH FROM TAMDOKA]

In the gray of the morn, ere the sun
          peeped over the dewy horizon,
Their journey again was begun,
          and they toiled up the swift, winding river;
And many a shallow they passed
          on their way to the Lake of the Spirits;[AX]
But dauntless they reached it at last,
          and found Akee-pa-kee-tin’s[AY] village,
On an isle in the midst of the lake;
          and a day in his teepees they tarried. 
Of the deed in the wilderness spake,
          to the brave Chief, the frank-hearted Frenchman. 
A generous man was the Chief,
          and a friend of the fearless explorer;
And dark was his visage with grief
          at the treacherous act of the warriors. 
“Brave Wazi-kute is a man,
          and his heart is as clear as the sunlight;
But the head of a treacherous clan
          and a snake-in-the-grass, is Tamdoka,”
Said the chief; and he promised DuLuth,
          on the word of a friend and a warrior,
To carry the pipe and the truth
          to his cousin, the chief at Kathaga;
For thrice at the Tanka Mede
          he smoked in the lodge of the Frenchman;
And thrice had he carried away
          the bountiful gifts of the trader.

[AX] Mille Lacs

[AY] See Hennepin’s account of “Aqui-pa-que-tin,” and his village.  Shea’s Hennepin, 225.