ystery pitched his tent
in this very region. Some legends say that the Minnewakan Chantay was
the tent itself, which afterward became earth and stones. Many of
the animals were washed and changed in this lake, the Minnewakan, or
Mysterious Water. It is the only inland water we know that is salt. No
animal has ever swum in this lake and lived."

"Tell me," I eagerly asked, "is it dangerous to man also?"

"Yes," he replied, "we think so; and no Indian has ever ventured in that
lake to my knowledge. That is why the lake is called Mysterious," he
repeated.

"I shall now tell you of Chotanka. He was the greatest of medicine
men. He declared that he was a grizzly bear before he was born in human
form." Weyuha seemed to become very earnest when he reached this point
in his story. "Listen to Chotanka's life as a grizzly bear."

"'As a bear,' he used to say, 'my home was in sight of the Minnewakan
Chantay. I lived with my mother only one winter, and I only saw my
father when I was a baby. Then we lived a little way from the Chantay
to the north, among scattered oak upon a hillside overlooking the
Minnewakan.

"'When I first remember anything, I was playing outside of our home with
a buffalo skull that I had found near by. I saw something that looked
strange. It walked upon two legs, and it carried a crooked stick, and
some red willows with feathers tied to them. It threw one of the willows
at me, and I showed my teeth and retreated within our den.

"'Just then my father and mother came home with a buffalo calf. They
threw down the dead calf, and ran after the queer thing. He had long
hair upon a round head. His face was round, too. He ran and climbed up
into a small oak tree.

"'My father and mother shook him down, but not before he had shot some
of his red willows into their sides. Mother was very sick, but she
dug some roots and ate them and she was well again.' It was thus that
Chotanka was first taught the use of certain roots for curing wounds and
sickness," Weyuha added.

"'One day'"--he resumed the grizzly's story--"'when I was out hunting
with my mother-my father had gone away and never came back--we found
a buffalo cow with her calf in a ravine. She advised me to follow her
closely, and we crawled along on our knees. All at once mother crouched
down under the grass, and I did the same. We saw some of those queer
beings that we called "two legs," riding upon big-tail deer (ponies).
They yelled as they rode towa