But the head of a treacherous clan
and a snake-in-the-grass, is Tamdoka,"
Said the chief; and he promised DuLuth,
on the word of a friend and a warrior,
To carry the pipe and the truth
to his cousin, the chief at Kathaga;
For thrice at the _Tanka Mede_
he smoked in the lodge of the Frenchman;
And thrice had he carried away
the bountiful gifts of the trader.

[AX] Mille Lacs

[AY] See Hennepin's account of "Aqui-pa-que-tin," and his village.
Shea's Hennepin, 225.

When the chief could no longer prevail
on the white men to rest in his _teepees_,
He guided their feet on the trail
to the lakes of the winding Rice-River.[AZ]
Now on speeds the light bark canoe,
through the lakes to the broad _Gitchee Seebee_;[BA]
And up the great river they row,--
up the Big Sandy Lake and Savanna;
And down through the meadows they go
to the river of blue _Gitchee-Gumee_.[BB]
Still onward they speed to the Dalles--
to the roar of the white-rolling rapids,
Where the dark river tumbles and falls
down the ragged ravine of the mountains.
And singing his wild jubilee
to the low-moaning pines and the cedars,
Rushes on to the unsalted sea
o'er the ledges upheaved by volcanoes.
Their luggage the _voyageurs_ bore
down the long, winding path of the portage,[BC]
While they mingled their song with the roar
of the turbid and turbulent waters.
Down-wimpling and murmuring there
'twixt two dewy hills winds a streamlet,
Like a long, flaxen ringlet of hair
on the breast of a maid in her slumber.

All safe at the foot of the trail,
where they left it, they found their felucca,
And soon to the wind spread the sail,
and glided at ease through the waters,--
Through the meadows and lakelets and forth,
round the point stretching south like a finger,
From the pine-plumed hills on the north,
sloping down to the bay and the lake-side
And behold, at the foot of the hill,
a cluster of Chippewa wigwams,
And the busy wives plying with skill
their nets in the emerald waters.
Two hundred white winters and more
have fled from the face of the Summer
Since DuLuth on that wild, somber shore,
in the unbroken forest primeval,
From the midst of the spruce and the pines,
saw the smoke of the wig