th the
clashing of their iron wings.

A snake having crawled into this nest to steal the unhatched thunders,
Manitou caught up a piece of pipestone, hastily pressed it between his
hands, giving it the shape of a man, and flung it at the reptile. The
stone man's feet stuck fast in the ground, and there he stood for a
thousand years, growing like a tree and drawing strength and knowledge
out of the earth. Another shape grew up beside him--woman. In time the
snake gnawed them free from their foundations and the red-earth pair
wandered off together. From them sprang all people.

Ages after, the Manitou called the red men to the quarry, fashioned a
pipe for them, told them it was a part of their flesh, and smoked it over
them, blowing the smoke to north, south, east, and west, in token that
wherever the influence of the pipe extended there was to be brotherhood
and peace. The place was to be sacred from war and they were to make
their pipes from this rock. As the smoke rolled about him he gradually
disappeared from view. At the last whiff the ashes fell out and the
surface of the rock for miles burst into flame, so that it melted and
glazed. Two ovens opened at its foot, and through the fire entered the
two spirits Tsomecostee and Tsomecostewondee--that are still its
guardians, answering the invocations of the medicine-men and accepting
the oblations of those who go to make pipes or carve their totems on the
rock.

THE VIRGINS' FEAST

A game of lacrosse was played by Indian girls on the ice near the present
Fort Snelling, one winter day, and the victorious trophies were awarded
to Wenonah, sister of the chief, to the discomfiture of Harpstenah, her
opponent, an ill-favored woman, neglected by her tribe, and jealous of
Wenonah's beauty and popularity. This defeat, added to some fancied
slights, was almost more than she could bear, and during the contest she
had been cut in the head by one of the rackets--an accident that she
falsely attributed to her adversary in the game. She had an opportunity
of proving her hatred, for directly that it was known how Wenonah had
refused to marry Red Cloud, a stalwart boaster, openly preferring a
younger warrior of the tribe, the ill-thinking Harpstenah sought out the
disappointed suitor, who sat moodily apart, and thus advised him,
"To-morrow is the Feast of Virgins, when all who are pure will sit at
meat together. Wenonah will be there. Has she the right to be? Have you
not seen