“It is right they should smell the liquor here, for out of this rock a whiskey spring will soon begin to run.  It will begin with a very small stream, but soon will there be enough to satisfy everybody.  The Great Manitou knows that his red children are dry; he has sent a ‘medicine-man’ of the pale-faces to find a spring for them.  Now, look at this piece of rock—­it is dry—­not even the dew has yet moistened it.  See—­it is made like a wooden bowl, that it may hold the liquor of the spring.  Let Crowsfeather smell it—­smell it, Cloud—­let all my young men smell it, too, that they may be certain that there is nothing there.”

On this invitation, accompanied as it was by divers flourishes of the wand, and uttered in a deep, solemn tone of voice, the whole party of the Indians gathered around the small hollow basin-like cavity pointed out by the bee-hunter, in order both to see and to smell.  Most knelt, and each and all applied their noses to the rock, as near the bowl as they could thrust them.  Even the dignified and distrustful Crowsfeather could not refrain from bending in the crowd.  This was the moment for which le Bourdon wished, and he instantly prepared to carry out his design.

Previously, however, to completing the project originally conceived, a momentary impulse prevailed which urged him to adopt a new mode of effecting his escape.  Now, that most of the savages were on their hands and knees, struggling to get their noses as near as possible to the bowl, and all were intent on the same object, it occurred to the bee-hunter, who was almost as active as the panther of the American forest, that he might dash on toward the canoe, and make his escape without further mummery.  Had it been only a question of human speed perhaps such would have been the wisest thing he could do; but a moment’s reflection told him how much swifter than any foot of man was the bullet of a rifle.  The distance exceeded a hundred yards, and it was altogether in bright light, by means of the two fires, Wolfseye continuing to pile brush on that near which he still maintained his post, as if afraid the precious liquor would start out of the scent-spot, and be wasted should he abandon his ward.  Happily, therefore, le Bourdon relinquished his dangerous project almost as soon as it was entertained, turning his attention immediately to the completion of the plan originally laid.

It has been said that the bee-hunter made sundry flourishes with his wand.  While the savages were most eager in endeavoring to smell the rock, he lightly touched the earth that confined the whiskey in the largest pool, and opened a passage by which the liquor could trickle down the side of the rock, selecting a path for itself, until it actually came into the bowl, by a sinuous but certain channel.

Here was a wonder!  Liquor could not only be smelled, but it could be actually seen!  As for Cloud, not satisfied with gratifying the two senses connected with the discoveries named, he began to lap with his tongue, like a dog, to try the effect of taste.