within sixty or seventy paces from them, where the trembling Indian
halted, and throwing gifts to them in humble supplication, solicited
permission to dig and take away the red stone for his pipes.

Near this spot, too, on a high mound, was the "Thunder's nest," where
a very small bird sat upon her eggs during fair weather. When the skies
were rent with thunder at the approach of a storm, she was hatching her
brood, which caused the terrible commotion in the heavens. The bird was
eternal. The "medicine men" claimed that they had often seen her, and
she was about as large as a little finger. Her mate was a serpent whose
fiery tongue destroyed the young ones as soon as they were born, and the
awful noise accompanying the act darted through the clouds.

On the wall of rocks at the quarry are thousands of inscriptions and
paintings, the totems and arms of various tribes who have visited there;
but no idea can be formed of their antiquity.

Of the various traditions of the many tribes, I here present a few. The
Great Spirit at a remote period called all the Indian nations together
at this place, and, standing on the brink of the precipice of red-stone
rock, broke from its walls a piece and fashioned a pipe by simply
turning it in his hands. He then smoked over them to the north, the
south, the east, and the west, and told them the stone was red, that it
was their flesh, that they must use it for their pipes of peace, that
it belonged to all alike, and that the war-club and scalping-knife must
never be raised on its ground. At the last whiff of his pipe his head
went into a great cloud, and the whole surface of the ledge for miles
was melted and glazed; two great ovens were opened beneath, and two
women--the guardian spirits of the place--entered them in a blaze of
fire, and they are heard there yet answering to the conjurations of the
medicine men, who consult them when they visit the sacred place.

The legend of the Knis-te-neu's tribe (Crees), a very small band in the
British possessions, in relation to the quarry is this: In the time of
a great freshet that occurred years ago and destroyed all the nations of
the earth, every tribe of Indians assembled on the top of the Coteau des
Prairies to get out of the way of the rushing and seething waters. When
they had arrived there from all parts of the world, the water continued
to rise until it covered them completely, forming one solid mass of
drowned Indians, and their flesh