Salt Lake on the south a host of bearded men, who sacked
the town, slew the red chief with their thunder, and one of those
accursed evil spirits used violence to the maid when her lover's corpse
was hardly cold in death. She found in sorrow her way back to the
Natchez hills, where she became a mother, and lo! the boy had a beard
on his chin, and when he grew old enough to understand his mother's
words she whispered in his ear:

"'Son of the chiefs of the Beard,
Born from a bloody day,
Bloody be thy hand, and bloody be thy life
Until thy black beard with blood becomes red.'

"Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez. In my first ancestor a
long line of the first of hunters, chiefs, and warriors of the race of
their Suns had been born to them with beards on their chins. What chase
was ever unsuccessful over which they presided? When they spoke in the
council of the wise men of the nation, did it not always turn out that
their advice, whether adopted or rejected, was the best in the end? In
what battle were they ever defeated? When were they known to be worn
out with fatigue--with hardship, hunger or thirst, heat or cold, either
on land or water? Who ever could stem as they the rushing current of
the Father of rivers? Who can count the number of scalps which they
brought from distant expeditions? Their names have always been famous
in the wigwams of all the red nations. They have struck terror into the
breasts of the boldest enemies of the Natchez; and mothers, when their
sons paint their bodies in the colors of war, say to them:

"'Fight where, and with whom you please;
But beware, oh! beware of the chiefs of the Beard.
Give way to them as you would to death,
Or their black beards with your blood will be red.'

"Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez. When the first chief of
the Beard first trimmed the sacred fire in the temple, a voice was
heard which said: 'As long as there lives a chief of the race of the
Suns with a beard on his chin, no evil can happen to the Natchez
nation; but if the white race should ever resume the blood which it
gave in a bloody day, woe, three times woe, to the Natchez! Of them
nothing will remain but the shadow of a name.' Thus spake the invisible
prophet. Years rolled on, years thick on years, and none of the
accursed white-faces were seen; but they appeared at last, wrapped up
in their pale skins like shrouds of the dead, and the father of my
father, whom t