and a wall
Of warriors rose on every hand.
With common stroke their bow-strings' twang
Sounded death to that fated band.
The avengers closed upon their foe,
And ere they ceased the conflict wild,
Laid every feathered top-knot low;
In heaps Ojibway braves were piled.
When all the last red scalps were torn
They turned to find the murdered maid.
All in her tribe would rise and mourn
When dead before them she was laid.
But strange event! With wondering tone,
Each asked of each where she had flown.
In vain they searched. They found her not;
But there, upon the very spot
Where she had fallen, a fountain gushed
Which never man had seen before.
They gathered round with breathing hushed
And gazed, and wondered more and more.
While every grass-blade growing near
Was red and matted thick with gore,
The overflow was sweet and clear;
The bosom of the bubbling spring
Was spotless as a spirit's wing.
With single voice they all proclaimed
The magic spot a sacred place.
The vanished girl was thenceforth named
"Sweet Water," and to see her face
Dahkotah hearts will journey here
Till from the earth they disappear;
And when they die, their souls shall know
The secret of its crystal flow.

[Illustration: ROCK GATEWAY, LAKE PEPIN.]

Death of Winona.

Down the broad _Ha-Ha Wak-pa_[45] the band took their way to the Games
at _Keoza_,
While the swift-footed hunters by land ran the shores for the elk and
the bison.
Like _magas_[46] ride the birchen canoes on the breast of the dark,
winding river,
By the willow-fringed island they cruise, by the grassy hills green to
their summits;
By the lofty bluffs hooded with oaks that darken the deep with their
shadows;
And bright in the sun gleam the strokes of the oars in the hands of
the women.
With the band went Winona. The oar plied the maid with the skill of a
hunter.
They tarried a time on the shore of _Remnica_--the Lake of the
Mountains.[47]
There the fleet hunters followed the deer, and the thorny _pahin_ for
the women.
From the _tees_ rose the smoke of good cheer, curling blue through the
tops of the maples,
Near the foot of a cliff that arose, like the battle-scarred walls of
a castle,
Up-towering, in rugged repose, to a dizzy height over the waters.
But the man-wolf still followed his prey, and the step-mother ruled in
the _teepee_;
Her will must Winona obey, by the custom and law of Dakotas.
The gifts to the _teepee_ were brought--the b