Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1904-02-16

found themselves beyond all possibil.
ity OF that resistance whose giving
over they now bitterly repented. Teg.
anisoris regarded them with sar.
donic smile.
Il see you are all English" said he
though some Of you wear blue coats
These we may perhaps adopt into oul
tribe, for our boys grow up but slowly
and some of the blue coats are good
fighters. These dogs of Illini we shall
of course burn. AS for your wa,
house, you will no longer need it, since
you are now friends of the Iroquois
and are going to their villages. You
may say to Corlaer that you we'll know
the Iroquois have no prisoners"
The horrid significance of this threat
was all too soon made plain. In an
hour the little stockade was but a
mass of embers and ashes. In another
hour the little valley had become q
Gehenna Of anguish and lamentations,
with whose riot of grief and woe there
mingled the savage Civilizations of a
foe whose treachery was but surpassed
by his cruelty. Again the planting
ground of the Illini was utterly laid
waste, to mark it naught remaining
but trampled grain, and heaps OF ashes,
and remnants Of blackened and incin-
Grated bones. BY nightfall the party
of prisoners had begun wild journey
through the wilderness, whose horrors
surpassed any they had supposed to be
humanity endurable.
Day after day, week after week, for
more than a month, and much of the
time in winter weather, they toiled on,
part of the way by boat, the remain
der Of the journey on foot, crossing
snow-clogged forest, and tangled
thicket and frozen morass, yet daring
not to drop out for rest, since to lag
might mean to die. 1t was as though
after some frightful nightmare of suf-
fering and despair that at length they
reached the villages of the Five Ma
tons, located far to the east, at the
foot of the great waterway which
Law and his family had assembled more
than year before.
Yet if that which had gone before
seemed like some bitter dream, surely
the day of awakening promised but lit
tie better hope. From village to vii
lage, footsore and ill, they were hur-
ried without rest, at each new stopping
place the central figures of barbar-
GUS triumph; and nowhere did they
meet the representatives of either~th
French or the English government,
whose expected presence had consti-
tuted their one ground of hope.
Where is your big peace?" asked
Teganisoris of Pembroke. Where are
the head men of Corlaer? Who brings
presents to the Iroquois, and who is
to tell us that Onontio has carried the
pipe Of peace to Corlaer? Here are
our villages as when we left them,
and here again are we, save for the
absent ones who have been killed by
your young men. 1t is no wonder that
my people are displeased."
Indeed those of the Iroquois who had
remained at home clamored continu-
ally that some of the prisoners should
be given over to them. Thus, in doubt,
uncertainty and terror the party passed
through the villages, moving always
eastward, Until at length they arrived
at the fortified town where Teganisoris
made his home, a spot toward the foot
of Lake Ontario, and not widely re-
moved from that stupendous cataract
which, from the beginning of earth,
had uplifted it's thunderous diapason
here in the savage Wilderness nton-
eagrea, object of superstitious awe
among all the tribes.
Time hung heavy on the hands of
the savages. 1t was winter, and the
parties had all returned from the war
trails. The mutterings arose yet
more loudly among families who had
lost most heavily in the western expe-
ditions. The shrewd mind of Tegani-
SORTS knew that some new thing must
be planned. He announced his decision
at his own village, after the triumphal
progress among the tribes had at
length been concluded.
"Since they have sent us no pres
ents," said he, with that daring di-
plomacy which made him leader in
red craftsmanship, 'let those who
stayed at home be given some prisoner
in pay for those Of their people who
have been killed. Moreover, let us Of
fer to the Great Spirit some sacrifice in
Precipitation; since surely the Great
Spirit is offended" Such was the con-
clusion Of this head man of the Onon-
dagos, and fateful enough it was to
the prisoners.
The great gorge through which
poured the vast waters of the northern
seas was a spot not always visited by
those passing up the great lakes for
the western stations, nor down the
lakes to the settlements of the st.
Lawrence. Yet there was trail which
led around the great cataract, and the
occasional coureurs de bois, or the
passing friars, or the adventurous mer-
chants of the lower settlements now
and again left that trail, and came to
look upon the tremendous scene Of
the great falling of the waters. Here
where the tumult assembled up to
heaven, and where the white-blo
wreaths of mist might indeed, even in
an imagination better than that Of a
savage, have been construed into actual
forms of spirits, the Indians had, from
time immemorial, made their offerings
to the genius of the cataract-strips of
rude cloth, the skin of the beaver and
the otter, baskets woven of sweet
grasses, and, after the advent of the
white man, pieces of metal or strings
of precious beads. Such valued things
as these were in rude alteration placed
upon rocks or uplifted scaffolds near
to the brink of the ABYSS. This was