the falling of green leaves in the
hour of calm, and the whirl of dry ones in the wind, the hoot of the
grey owl on the ridge of his cabin, and the cry of the muckawiss in
the hollow woods. The _Hottuk Ishtohoollo_ or Holy People(1), with
their relations the _Nana Ishtohoollo_, proclaimed from the clouds
the threatened danger to the life of the warrior; while the _Nana
Ookproose_, or accursed beings, howled out the tidings from their
dwellings in the far west.

His years were not the years of an aged man; his hair was yet
unstained by the frost of tune, his eye yet flashed with the fire of
manhood, his step remained strong and steady. Yet, without hunger,
without want, without pain, without disease, without a wound, in the
prime of life, in the vigour of manhood, beloved by his friends, and
feared by his enemies, the pride of the Winnebagoes was seen fast
approaching the house of the dead.

None knew why, yet from one fatal day he was seen to droop, as a lily
bends before, a fervid sun. From one fatal day his joy forsook him,
and his eye became like a troubled water. His laugh had no more the
joyousness of his healthful hour; his step was no more light and
buoyant; food no more pleased his palate; sleep refreshed him no more.
They came and sang the war-song at the door of his cabin, and he
suffered them to depart without the answering shout. It was sung in
his ears, "The Potowatomies are in in our war-path," but he raised not
his head--"The Hurons have the scalp of thy brother's son," and no cry
of vengeance burst from his lips. Slowly and gradually he faded away,
and the time soon came that he could move no more from his bed of
soft grass, but lay in silent expectation of the sound of the voice
that calls the spirit home. It was while he was thus laid on the couch
of death that he called the tribe around him, and told them why peace
had departed from his soul, and why he waited anxiously the moment of
his release from the chains of the flesh.

"I launched my canoe," said he, "upon the lake which has given its
name to our nation, when the sun was getting low in the latter part of
the month of the blooming lilies. Stilness was abroad upon the face of
the waters, and the lake lay as calm as a babe rocked to sleep on the
breast of its mother. Not the slightest ripple broke upon its surface,
which was smooth as a field of ice frozen in a calm. Nothing marred
its beauty, save now and then a sportive fish gliding over its