ndian medicine man used. The
frightful noise sounded through the woods. It did not seem to come
from anywhere. The Indians thought that these cries came down from the
sky. The Indian women were thrown into a great fright, and even the
warriors and chiefs were alarmed. They said that the Master of Life
was angry with their tribe, and that this horrible voice showed that
something bad was going to happen to them.

[Illustration]

The day after the voice was heard, the old men of the tribe came to
consult Bossu about this strange noise. Bossu told them that the white
soldier who had been killed could not rest. He said that every night
his voice was heard, though nothing could be seen. He said that the
voice cried out in a melancholy tone, "I am the white soldier that
went with the French captain. I was killed by a man of the tribe of
the Kanoatinos. Frenchmen, revenge my death."

The Indians now saw that it was of no use for them to tell any more
lies about the death of the white man. They believed that the
soldier's ghost had told the Frenchmen all about it. They confessed
the murder, but they explained that the white soldier had provoked it
when he was drunk, by bad treatment of the Indian who killed him.

Captain Bossu was not willing to take their excuses. He told them,
that, if the soldier had done wrong, he ought to have been brought to
his own captain to be punished. He said, "If one of my soldiers should
kill one of your Indians, I would put him to death. You must do the
same with the Indian who killed my soldier."

The oldest of the chiefs now commanded one of his men to go and seize
the guilty man, bind him, and bring him in to be put to death, in
order that the ghost of the French soldier might no longer trouble
them.

Captain Bossu did not wish to put the Indian to death. He knew that
the French soldier had very greatly wronged and provoked the Indian.
He got his young Indian friend to go to the wife of the chief of the
Kanoatinos, and say to her that she might beg the life of the guilty
man. The young Indian told the chief's wife that Captain Bossu would
not refuse her anything. The woman went, and begged that the Indian
might be spared. Bossu consented that the Indian should live, but said
that he did it as a favor to the chief's wife.

The chief then turned to the condemned Indian, and said to him, "You
were dead, but the captain of the white warriors has brought you to
life at the request of the ch