e been
gone a right smart spell for the princess got plum out of heart, allowed
he was never coming back and, bless you, she leapt off a cliff. Killed
herself! And all this time her own true love was unaware of what she had
done. He, himself, was give up to be dead. But what kept him away so
long was he had come upon a silver mine. He dug the silver out of the
earth, melted it, and made a beautiful tomahawk. He beat it out on the
anvil and fashioned a peace pipe on its handle. He must have been proud
as a peacock strutting in the sun preening its feathers. Huraken was
hurrying along, fleet as a deer through the forest, his shiny tomahawk
glistening in his strong right hand. The gift for the chieftain in
exchange for the princess bride. All of a sudden he halted right off yon
a little way. There where the stony cliff hangs over. Right there before
Huraken's eyes at his feet lay the corpse of an Indian lass, face
downward. When he turned the face upwards, it was the princess. Princess
Manuita, his own true love. His sorryful cry raised up as high as the
heavens. Huraken was plum beside himself with grief. He gathered up the
princess in his arms and packed her off into the cave. Her tomb is right
in there yet--empty."

Old Morg paused for breath. "Huraken kept it secret where he had buried
his true love. He meant to watch over her tomb all the rest of his life.
Then the chieftain, Manuita's father, got word of it somehow. He vowed
to his tribe that Huraken had murdered his daughter in cold blood. So
the chieftain and his tribe set out and captured Huraken. They bound him
hand and foot with strips of buckskin out in the forest so that wild
varmints could come and devour his flesh and he couldn't help himself.
He'd concealed his tomahawk next to his hide under his heavy deerskin
hunting coat. But the spirit of the dead princess pitied her helpless
lover. Come a big rain that night that pelted him and soaked him plum to
the skin. The princess had prayed of the Rain God to send that downpour.
It soaked the buckskin through and through that bound Huraken's hands
and feet and he wriggled loose. Many a long day and night he wandered
away off in strange forests, but all the time the spirit of his true
love, the princess, haunted him. He got no peace till he came back and
give himself up to the chieftain. Only one thing the prisoner asked.
Would they let him go to the cave before they put him to death? Now the
Cherokees are fearful