82 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



after the noon, when "the shadows slanted across it" and Och-do-ah, 

 the Bat, had entered the rock, the spring became a baneful poison, 

 sudden or lingering, as Och-do-ah might will. No mortal should 

 near it for healing when Och-do-ah was enticing all things to drink 

 of its death. 



Ah-ne-ah, Rose Flower, who had gone to the spring in quest of 

 its water, was weaving the sweet-smelling grasses into baskets 

 and singing the firefly song as she braided the strands to its tune, 

 and, as happy as she was beautiful, had not seen the noon nearing 

 the spring, and it was glinting the edge of the rock when she hast- 

 ened toward it. 



As she held her elm bowl to the gurgling water, it seemed never 

 to fill, and she saw there a face more beautiful than any she had 

 ever beheld; and the face was smiling and nodding at her as it 

 floated from side to side of the spring, as if coaxing, then disap- 

 pearing to return with its enchanting smile which allured Ah-ne-ah 

 by a weird spell from which she could not escape. 



As she wondering gazed, the threatening shadow entered the 

 spring, and when the smiling face vanished, something suddenly 

 seized her and bore her upward far from the forest and, as with 

 wings, so swiftly flying, the wind which seemed following lagged 

 far behind them. Then hurrying to the earth below, they crossed 

 a broad river and plunged down its cataract to a wide water, 

 which raged in a fury of confusion. There Ah-ne-ah seemed alone 

 in the mad torrent, save a face which floated beside her, hideous 

 in its threatening frown, and she turned from it in horror, and the 

 fierce water tossed her to its bank where a massive oak was up- 

 rooted. 



There again was the face, which led her down below the earth 

 to a place glaring as with flames and where numberless people 

 were dancing, carelessly dancing, and among the vast multitude 

 passing, were some of her own people who had died years before, 

 and who appealed to her for pity as they moaned, "don-de-gwan-de, 

 don-de-gwan-de" (pity us, pity us). Helpless and dumb in her 

 terror, some monster pushed her into the circle of dancers where, 

 doomed to the fire dance, she felt herself blind and dying, when 

 she seemed to breathe a new air, life restoring and fragrant of 

 pines of the woodland, and as she opened her eyes it was sunrise 

 and she stood by the spring! 



By her side was a young warrior robed as the hunter robes for 

 the hunt. In his hand he held a branch of spruce pine; on 

 his head were two wings, one of the owl, the other an eagle. His 



