tretched itself out at full
length, and seemed in a very good humor. It was more than four feet
long.

After having more smoke blown at it, it slowly crept away. The Indians
followed, begging their grandfather, as they called it, to take care
of their families while they were gone. They also asked that the snake
would open the heart of the English general so that he would give them
a great deal of rum. One of the chiefs begged the snake to take no
notice of the insult offered to him by the white man, who would have
killed it if the Indians had not stopped him. They also begged that it
would remain and live in their country.

The Indians thought that the snake was a spirit or god in this form.
They thought that it had been sent to stop them on their way. They
were almost ready to turn back, but Mr. Henry persuaded them to go on.

The next morning was calm. The Indians took a short course by sailing
straight to an island out in the lake. But after they had got far out,
the wind began to blow very hard. They expected every moment that
their canoe would be swallowed up by the waves. They began to pray to
the rattlesnake to help them. One of the chiefs resolved to make a
sacrifice to the snake. He took a dog, and tied its legs together, and
threw it into the water. He asked the snake spirit to be satisfied
with this. But the wind continued to grow higher, and so another dog
was thrown into the water, and some tobacco was thrown with it. The
chief told Grandfather Snake that the man who wanted to kill him was
really a white man, and no kin to the snake or to the Indians.

Some of the Indians began to think of throwing Mr. Henry in after the
dog and the tobacco to satisfy the snake spirit; but the wind went
down, and they soon got to the island. Some days afterward the party
came to the fort. The English general was very glad to see Mr. Henry,
and his long captivity was over, in spite of the anger of the
rattlesnake god of the Indians.

WITCHCRAFT IN LOUISIANA.

The Indian medicine men or priests have many ways of deceiving their
people. A French officer found that the people of a certain tribe
believed very much in an idol which a medicine man had set up. This
idol was called by a long name, Vistee-poolee-keek-apook. The Indians,
when they stood near, would sometimes hear it speak, and this seemed
to them a very wonderful thing.

A French officer named Bossu tried to find out what made the idol
talk. He found