"Hiawatha" was performed on a rocky, thickly wooded point
about two miles away. Near the shore a platform was built around a tall
pine-tree, and grouped around this were tepees and wigwams forming the
Indian village. Behind this the ground sloped gradually upward, forming
a natural amphitheatre.

As a prelude to the play a large pile of brushwood was lighted.

"And the smoke rose slowly, slowly,
As a signal to the Nations."

Down the hillsides rushed the braves in war-paint and feathers,--

"Wildly glaring at each other,
In their hearts the feuds of ages.
Then upon the ground the warriors
Threw their weapons and their war-gear,
Leaped into the rushing river,
Washed the war-paint from their faces,
And in silence all the warriors
Broke the red stone of the quarry,
Smoothed and formed it into Peace-Pipes."

Then appeared old Nokomis leading by the hand the youthful Hiawatha, and
taught him how to shoot the bow and arrow, while the warriors stood
around watching and applauding when he hit the mark.

The third scene was the journey of Hiawatha in his manhood after his
battle with Mudjekeewis, a picturesque figure striding through the woods
flecked with sunshine and shadow.

"Only once his pace he slackened,
Paused to purchase heads of arrows
Of the ancient arrow-maker."

The wigwam of the ancient arrow-maker was placed far from the rest in
the shade of the trees, to give an idea of distance. The arrow-maker
himself, a very old man, sat by the entrance, cutting arrowheads; his
daughter, a modest Indian maiden, stood beside him with downcast eyes,
while the stranger paused to talk with her father.

This scene was followed by the return of Hiawatha to the land of the
Dakotahs. Again the old man sat in the doorway, and by him was
Minnehaha, "plaiting mats of flags and rushes."

"Then uprose the Laughing Water,
Laid aside her mat unfinished,
Brought forth food, and set before them,
Gave them drink in bowls of bass wood."

She stood modestly on one side while Hiawatha urged his suit, and then
putting her hand in his, she followed him home through the forest.

Then came the wedding dances, full of life and spirit, the figures
moving always round and round in a circle, with a swaying motion, the
feet scarcely lifted from the ground. Under the pine-tree, tall and
erect, with head and eyes uplifted, stood the musician, chanting his
songs with a strange rhythmical cadence, and ac