im. They
spent some days in talking with each other.

One evening Hiawatha asked his father what he was most afraid of on
earth. He replied, "Nothing." "But is there not something you dread
here? Tell me." At last his father said, yielding, "Yes, there is a
black stone found in such a place. It is the only earthly thing I am
afraid of; for if it should hit me, or any part of my body, it would
injure me very much." He said this as a secret, and in return asked
his son the same question. Knowing each other's power, although the
son's was limited, the father feared him on account of his great
strength. Hiawatha answered, "Nothing!" intending to avoid the
question, or to refer to some harmless object as the one of which he
was afraid. He was asked again, and again, and answered, "Nothing!"
But the West said, "There must be something you are afraid of." "Well!
I will tell you," said Hiawatha, "what it is." But, before he would
pronounce the word, he affected great dread. "_Ie-ee_--_Ie-ee_--it
is--it is," said he, "yeo! yeo! I cannot name it; I am seized with a
dread." The West told him to banish his fears. He commenced again, in
a strain of mock sensitiveness repeating the same words; at last
he cried out, "It is the root of the bulrush." He appeared to be
exhausted by the effort of pronouncing the word, in all this skilfully
acting a studied part.

Some time after he observed, "I will get some of the black rock;"
the West said, "Far be it from you; do not so, my son." He still
persisted. "Well," said the father, "I will also get the bulrush root."
Hiawatha immediately cried out, "Do not--do not," affecting as before,
to be in great dread of it, but really wishing, by this course, to
urge on the West to procure it, that he might draw him into combat. He
went out and got a large piece of the black rock, and brought it home.
The West also took care to bring the dreaded root.

In the course of conversation he asked his father whether he had been
the cause of his mother's death. The answer was "Yes!" He then took
up the rock and struck him. Blow led to blow, and here commenced an
obstinate and furious combat, which continued several days. Fragments
of the rock, broken off under Hiawatha's blows, can be seen in various
places to this day. The root did not prove as mortal a weapon as his
well-acted fears had led his father to expect, although he suffered
severely from the blows. This battle commenced on the mountains. The
West