The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1879-12-05
The Eawkeye Man at Grand Falls, N. 3.

1
There is very tender and touching le
gend about these falls. knew there mus
be. If there had been none should hav,
made one up, something hate to do mos
awfnlly, because I like all of my romaneei
to have dash of truth in them.
There was, on a time within the memory
OF the oldest inhabitant, trouble among
the Indians. The Mohawks, if it was the
Mohawks. and the Milicetes, if that is the
way you spell it, fell in love with each 9th.
Or, and each begged the other for lock oi
bis hair to remember him by. and at the
same time the ardent suitor begged the
poor boon of being allowed to cut off the
lock himself. Moreover, to show that he
meant business, he ground up his little
Thomas hawk ami honed his persuasive
little scalPjng knife and announced that he
was in the hair business, no trouble to
show goods, a new crate just opened TO
day, orders from the country promptly at
tended to.
Well, customers came. right along from
the day the sign was hung out on either
side, and both establishments had all they
could do. The supply seemed to equal the
demand, aud the demand was steady and
constant, with rising tendency. But af-
ter while it was evident that the Mohawks
had the most and best men on the road and
had got the dead wood on the country
trade, and vast quantities of hair was
worked up at prices to suit the times.
Things went on this way until at last the
Milioete Indians were forced out Of the
jobbing trade entirely, buying in small lots
and manufacturing only home orders, all
sales at thirty days, on margin of one
and half per cent. But the greedy Mo-
hawks put up few branch stores to kill off
this stand, and the Milicetes were driven to
little puttering side street business, hard
ly getting enough hair to run the heading
machine.
Meanwhile the demand in the Mohawk
market for Milicete hair continued ulaba-
Vcuq huO AAukACAo hOA WAC AA'NSo WoAo uAoA
ring in their efforts to secure the new crops
and whatever there was in the stack of
bins. And when they brought in word one
day that the rival house had skipped the
country. taking all the Milicete hair there
was along with them, on their heads, the
Mohswks got up, put on their war paint,
Jal ;~%0 %hns okorraA Hnun
the river in fierce pursuit. Night closed in
alike on the pursuers and the pursued.
The Milicetes padded till their backs ached,
and the Mohawks made the ripples fly ba-
hind them. At length the roar of the falls
sounded in the ears of the flying Milicetes,
and they turned to ths"rhore, ~beached their
light barks and struck for tall timber.
all but one. A woman, as usual, was
the last one in the train. A squaw, whose
aboriginal name | either forgot or never
knew, Mary Jane johnson, maybe, was
along at the tail end of the pro-
cession. For two or three miles before
the falls she had made up her
or squawly, mind that she would
save her tribe and at the same time avenge
them. So she lighted kerosene lamp, or
It May have been pine knot, and set it in
the stern of her canoe. The pursuing Mo-
hawks saw it, that it was the last actiof
sullen or helpless defiance, and they howled
till their corns ached trying to reach it.
When the fugitives landed above the falls,
Mary Jane johnson landed to. but she did
not strike for the woods. She picked up
her kerosene lamp and trotted around the
falls on the rocks. From rock to rock she
nimbly sprung and lightly scrambled until
she reached point far beyond them,
where her flaming signal just lined the pur-
SUNG canoes with the "split rocks just
midway in the cataracts. On came the
their fierce eyes fastened on the
flame that danced before them, their fierce
CRIES drowning the roar of the cataract,
until suddenly the angry white foam leaps
into their faces from the swirls and eddying
rapids that catch their fragile barKs, and
before their savage yells Of bate can be
changed to the notes of their death song,
the sad plunge is taken and the gorge is 80
full of drowned Indians that the coroner's
office is worth $3.50 year for the next six
weeks.
It used the Mohawks up completely.
They went out of business and joined the
Spiritualists. Milicetes also. what was left
,f them reformed, went out of politics en-
;irely, and the tribe is now settled down IN
IN Indian village down below here little
ways, at the mouth of the Aroostosk,
where they live on the interest of their
axes. Mary Jane johnson was highly
,lghly honored by the tribe. They mar
led her to the chief and granted her the
rec privilege of cutting wood and hoeing
,orn and cooking for her husband and nj
;een children all the rest of her life.