“Dat true,” said Cloud, quickly—­“I hear so’ger at Fort Dearborn call him Whiskey Centre!”

This little circumstance greatly complicated the mystery, and le Bourdon perceived that he had hit on a lucky explanation.

“Soldiers far and near—­soldiers drunk or sober—­soldiers with scalps, and soldiers without scalps—­all know the place by that name.  But you need not believe with your eyes shut and noses stopped, chief, since you have the means of learning for yourselves the truth of what I tell you.  Come with me, and I will tell you where to dig in the morning for a whiskey spring.”

This communication excited a tremendous feeling among the savages, when its purport came to be explained to the whole party.  Apart from the extraordinary, miraculous nature of such a spring, which in itself was sufficient to keep alive expectation and gratify curiosity, it was so comfortable to have an inexhaustible supply of the liquor running out of the bowels of the earth, that it is no wonder the news spread infinite delight among the listeners.  Even the two or three of the chiefs who had so shrewdly divined the manner in which the liquor had been spilled, were staggered by the solemnity and steadiness of the bee-hunter’s manner, and perhaps a little carried away by sympathy with those around them.  This yielding of the human mind to the influence of numbers is so common an occurrence as scarcely to require explanation, and is the source of half the evils that popular associations inflict on themselves.  It is not that men capable of seeing the truth are ever wanting; but men capable of maintaining it, in the face of clamor and collected power.

It will be readily conceived that a medicine-man who is supposed to possess the means of discovering a spring that should overflow with pure whiskey, would not be left without urgent demands for a speedy exercise of this art.  This was now the case with le Bourdon, who was called on from all sides to point out the precise spot where the young men were to commence digging in order to open on the treasure.  Our hero knew that his only hope of escape was connected with his steadily maintaining his assumed character; or of maintaining this assumed character, with his going on, at once, to do something that might have the effect, temporarily at least, of satisfying the impatience of his now attentive listeners.  Accordingly, when the demand was made on him to give some evidence of his power, he set about the task, not only with composure, but with a good deal of ingenuity.

Le Bourdon, it will be remembered, had, with his own hands, rolled the two barrels of whiskey down the declivity.  Feeling the great importance of effectually destroying them, he had watched their descent, from the top to the bottom of the hill, and the final disappearance of the staves, etc., into the torrent which brawled at its foot.  It had so happened that the half-filled cask broke and let out its liquor at a point much