Read Ebook: Yosemite Legends by Smith Bertha H Lundborg Florence Illustrator

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Ebook has 1101 lines and 56423 words, and 23 pages

The two women left above dared not go near the treacherous ledge, lest they too come within reach of the vengeful Spirit. Afraid even to give a backward glance, they hurried down the steep path to spread the alarm. Scarce was their story told before a band of daring braves rushed to the rescue of the maiden; but though they searched till night among the rocks where the water swirls and leaps to catch the rainbow thrown there by the western sun, they found no trace of her. The maiden's spirit had joined the forces of Po-ho-no, and could know no rest, nor be released from his hateful thrall, until by her aid another victim was drawn to his doom. Here she must stay, hidden by the mist from watchful eyes, beckoning always, tempting always, luring another soul to pay the forfeit of her own release. Then, and then only, would the spirit of the maiden be free to pass on to the home of the Great Spirit in the West.

Hum-moo, the Lost Arrow

Tee-hee-neh was the fairest of the daughters of Ah-wah-nee, and the happiest, for she was the chosen bride of the brave Kos-soo-kah.

When she went forth from her father's lodge to bathe in the shadowy depths of Ke-koo-too-yem, the Sleeping Water, her step was light as the touch of a wind-swept leaf upon the rocks. When she stooped to lave her cheeks in the cool spray, her dark hair fell about her shoulders like a silken web, and the water mirror showed her a pair of laughing eyes of the color of ripened acorns, and in them the soft light of an Indian summer day. The sound of her voice was as the patter of rain on green leaves, and her heart was fearless and full of love.

No other woman of the tribe could weave such baskets as grew by the magic skill of her fingers, and she alone knew the secret of interweaving the bright feathers of the red-headed woodpecker and the topknots of mountain quail. Her acorn bread was always sweetest, the berries she gathered ripest, the deerskin she tanned softer than any other; and all because of the love in her heart, for she knew that Kos-soo-kah would eat of her bread and fruit, would drink from the baskets she wove, would wear upon his feet the moccasins she made.

Kos-soo-kah was a hunter, fearless and bold, sure with bow and spear, always fortunate in the chase. In his veins ran the blood that surges hot when there are daring deeds to do, and of all the young chiefs of Ah-wah-nee he had the greatest power among his people. Like the wooing of the evening star by the crescent moon was the mating of Tee-hee-neh with Kos-soo-kah; and when the young chief gathered together robes of squirrel and deerskin and of the skins of water-fowl, arrows and spear-heads, strings of coral and bear teeth, and gave them as a marriage token to Tee-hee-neh's father, the old chief looked upon him with favor.

This was their marriage. But before Tee-hee-neh should go with Kos-soo-kah to his lodge there must be a great feast, and all day long Ah-wah-nee was astir with signs of preparation.

From many shady places came a sound like the tap-tap-tapping of woodpeckers, where the older women sat upon smooth, flat rocks pounding dried acorns into meal to make the acorn bread; and the younger women went with their baskets to the meadows and woods for grass seeds, herbs and wild honey.

The morning mists were still tangled in the pines when Kos-soo-kah and his hunters began to climb the trail that cut into the heart of the forest. From a covert spot Tee-hee-neh watched her lover disappear through the cleft in the northern wall, where the arrow-wood grows thick; then she joined the other women and worked with a light heart until long shadows stretched across the meadow and warned her of the hour when she was to be near the foot of Cho-look to receive the message from Kos-soo-kah.

Far over the mountains Kos-soo-kah laughed loud with a hunter's pride as he bound to his swiftest arrow all the feathers of a grouse's wing. Sped by a hunter's pride and a lover's pride he leaped along the rocky trail, far in advance of the youthful braves of his band who bore among them the best of the kill. Eagerly he watched the western sky, fearful lest the sun's last kiss should tinge the brow of Tis-sa-ack before he reached the cliff whence his bow should let fly the message to the waiting one below.

The frightened quail fluttered in his path unseen. A belated vulture, skimming the fading sky, seemed not to be in motion. So swiftly Kos-soo-kah ran, the wind stood still to let him pass.

He reached the valley wall at last, his strength well spent but still enough to pull his bow to a full half-circle. Poised for an instant, the feathered shaft caught on its tip a sun ray, then flew downward; but though mighty and sure the force that sent it, no message came to the faithful Tee-hee-neh.

Hour after hour she waited, the joy in her heart changing to a nameless fear as the blue sky faded gray, and the gray went purple in the thickening dusk, and yet no sign, no sound of the returning hunters.

"Kos-soo-kah! Kos-soo-kah!" trembled her voice in the stillness. Only a weird echo answered, "Kos-soo-kah."

Perhaps they had wandered far, and Kos-soo-kah could not reach the cliff till the night shadows had crept out of the valley, and over the tops of the mountains. Perhaps even now he was returning down the Ca?on of the Arrow-wood. This she whispered to a heart that gave no answering hope.

She would go forward to meet him, and hear from his lips the message which the arrow failed to bring. As she hurried along the narrow trail, clinging to the slanting ledges, pushing aside the overhanging branches, she called and called, "Kos-soo-kah!"

Now and again she stopped to listen for the sound of voices, or of footsteps, but only the cry of a night bird or the crackling of dry twigs stirred the still air.

Trembling with uncertainty and fear, she reached the top of the sharp ascent. There by the light of the stars she saw fresh footprints in the loose, moist earth. Her heart told her they were his; her quick eye told her they went toward the cliff, but did not return. Crouching there beside them, she called again, "Kos-soo-kah!" Not even an echo answered the despairing cry.

Slowly she crept forward, following the fresh trail to the edge of the wall. She leaned far over, and there on a mound of fallen rock lay her lover, motionless, nor answering her call. Tight in his grasp was the spent bow, the sign of a promise kept.

As she looked, there came again to Tee-hee-neh's mind the dull roar of rending rock, the low moan of falling earth, that ran through the valley at the sunset hour. Now she knew that as Kos-soo-kah drew his bow to speed the messenger of love, the ground beneath his feet had given way, carrying him with the fatal avalanche.

The girl's heart no longer beat fast with fear. It seemed not to beat at all. But there was no time for grief,--perhaps Kos-soo-kah had not ceased to breathe. On the topmost point of rock she lighted a signal fire, and forced its flames high into the dark, flashing a call for help. It would be long, she knew, before any one could come; but this was the only chance to save Kos-soo-kah.

Hours passed. With feverish energy she piled dry branches high upon the signal fire, nor let its wild beckonings rest a moment. At last old men came from the valley, and the young braves from the mountains bearing with them the carcasses of deer and bear.

They lowered her to his side; and, loosing the cords that bound her, she knelt beside him, whispering in his ear, "Kos-soo-kah!" No sound came from the cold, set lips. The wide-open eyes stared unseeing at the sky. Tee-hee-neh knew that he was dead.

She did not cry aloud after the manner of Indian women in their grief, but gently bound the helpless form with the deerskin cords and raised it as high as her arms could reach when the pole was drawn upward; then waited in silence until she was lifted by the willing hands above.

When she found herself again at Kos-soo-kah's side, she stood for an instant with eyes fixed upon the loved form, there in the cold, starless dawn of her marriage day; then with his name upon her lips she fell forward upon his breast. They drew her away, but the spirit of Tee-hee-neh had followed the spirit of Kos-soo-kah.

The two were placed together upon the funeral pyre, and with them was burned all that had been theirs. In Kos-soo-kah's hand was the bow, but the arrow could not be found. The lovers had spirited it away. In its stead they left a pointed rock lodged in the cliff between Cho-look, the High Fall, and Le-ham-i-te, the Ca?on of the Arrow-wood, in token of Kos-soo-kah's fulfilled pledge. This rock is known to the children of Ah-wah-nee as Hum-moo, the Lost Arrow.

Py-we-ack, the White Water

Since the peaks of Sky Mountains were little hills, the Ah-wah-nee-chees have lived in the deep, grassy valley the white man knows as Yo-sem-i-te. Eastward of To-co-yah, the Acorn Basket Rock, live the Mo-nos; and for a thousand years the sachems of the Ah-wah-nee-chees and the sachems of the Mo-nos smoked the pipe of peace together.

In the autumn when the Great Spirit swept through Ah-wah-nee with a breath of frost, painting the leaves all scarlet and gold and brown, scattering tufts of snow-white cloud across the blue sky, and weaving a web of bluish haze among the green pine tops, the Ah-wah-nee-chee braves prepared for the last great hunt of the year. The feast of the manzanita berries was past, and the feast of acorns, and after the autumn hunt came the feast of venison.

As the time of the feast drew near, runners were sent across the mountains, carrying a bundle of willow sticks, or a sinew cord or leaf of dried grass tied with knots, that the Mo-nos might know how many suns must cross the sky before they should go to Ah-wah-nee to share the feast of venison with their neighbors.

And the Mo-nos gathered together baskets of pi?on nuts, and obsidian arrow-heads, and strings of shells, to carry with them to give in return for acorns and chinquapin nuts and basket willow, which do not grow on the farther side of Sky Mountains and which the Great Spirit has given in plenty to the children of Ah-wah-nee.

At the feast the great chiefs sat side by side and the smoke of their pipes curled into a single spiral in the air. And when all were gorged with food, they danced about the fire chanting the mighty deeds of their ancestors, or sat upon the ground playing the ancient hand game, he-no-wah, staking their arrows and their bearskin robes, their wampum and their women upon the hand that held the hidden willow stick.

Not only in their pastimes were they friends. When the Great Spirit wafted a soul to the happy land in the West, the runners went again across the Sky Mountains and the tribes gathered together to join in the funeral dance and mingle their voices in the funeral wail. In grief, as in joy, they were friends,--for a thousand years.

But the law of the mountain and the forest is not a law of peace, and it was the will of the Great Spirit that they should not dwell always in harmony.

The Ah-wah-nee-chees numbered more men than women; and from time to time bands of young braves, in the flush of primal strength, swept through the country with the ungoverned madness of a bullock herd, carrying away women from the villages they raided.

When the Mo-no men came to Ah-wah-nee to the feasts of the manzanita berry and of acorns and of venison, they brought their women with them. These mountain women were pleasing to the eye, erect as the silver fir that grows upon the mountain side, clean-limbed and free of motion as the panther; and more than all others were they coveted by the Ah-wah-nee-chees, who chafed under a friendship that thwarted desire.

And the story is told that at a certain feast of venison Wa-hu-lah, a Mo-no maiden, stirred the fancy of a young warrior of Ten-ie-ya's band. Spring, the love season of Nature's children, had passed the young warrior many times since he came to manhood, and he had not heeded her soft whisper. But never before had he seen Wa-hu-lah, the Mo-no maiden.

Now, through all the time of feasting, he watched eagerly for the love sign in Wa-hu-lah's eyes; but he saw there only the depth and the darkness and the mystery of a pool hidden in the heart of a forest of pines, which no ray of sunlight pierces.

Love was dead in the heart of Wa-hu-lah. On her face could still be seen dim traces of mourning, lines of pitch and ashes not yet worn away, though there had been two seasons of grass and flowers since her voice rose in the funeral wail beside the pyre of her dead lover. She had not died as the dove does when her mate is gone; but she could not forget, and as she sat among the feasters sorrow throbbed in her heart like the ceaseless whirr of a grouse's wing. The Ah-wah-nee-chee warrior sought in vain for an answering sign, and when the days of feasting were over Wa-hu-lah went away with her father.

Day and night the Ah-wah-nee-chee thought of his love; the face of Wa-hu-lah was ever before his eyes; and he knew that he must follow her and bring her to his lodge. But already the snow-clouds resting on the peaks of Sky Mountains were scattering their burden, soft and white as the down of Tis-sa-ack's wings. Valley and forest lay lifeless under a thick blanket, and the trails were choked with snow.

The Ah-wah-nee-chee's love smouldered through the winter months, with naught but the memory of Wa-hu-lah's sad, unanswering eyes to feed upon. Far away, in the wig-wam of her father, Wa-hu-lah nursed her grief.

At last spring came, with soft, straying winds that breathe of new life. Birds sang in the trees as they built their nests; squirrels chattered softly among the rocks; Too-loo-lo-we-ack, the Rushing Water, babbled of the joys of summer; and Yo-wi-we dashed from the heights to carry the message of love brought by the sun from the southland to all the valley.

While yet the trails were heavy with melting snows, the Ah-wah-nee-chee warrior stole away from his lodge one night and set his face toward the rising sun, yonder to the eastward of To-co-yah; and ere the day god had wrapped himself in his flaming cloud blanket in the far-off West, the Ah-wah-nee-chee was smoking the peace pipe with the chief of the Mo-nos, Wa-hu-lah's father.

Before the sun again strode the bald peaks of the Sky Mountains, he was gone; and when the women came forth to make ready the morning meal, the old chief saw that Wa-hu-lah was not among them; and he knew that the spirit of the peace pipe had been violated.

Wa-hu-lah made no struggle when she found herself borne along in the arms of her captor. Her heart beat like the heart of a hunted thing that feels the hunter near and cover far away, but her face showed no sign. It was useless to resist; but had the Ah-wah-nee-chee looked into the still, sad depths of her eyes, he would have seen there a glittering spark, the fire of a woman's lasting hate.

Along the heavy trail he toiled, and not until he reached the kinder paths that Spring had cleared did he let Wa-hu-lah's feet rest upon the ground. Then she walked before him, silent, submissive, but with the spark still glowing in her downcast eyes.

Silent, submissive, she followed as he led the way to the place he had prepared for her,--a woodland bower, pine carpeted, roofed with boughs of oak and alder, the couch of branches spread with deerskin.

Silent, submissive, she ate of the food he brought her, fresh bear meat and acorn bread, and grass roots fattened by the melting snows.

Silent still, but with submission changed to defiant purpose, she watched him go away and take his place among the braves of his tribe who ate as the women prepared their food. Hunger possessed him and he gave no thought to caution. At another time his quick ear might have caught the sound of twigs snapping under the pressure of a moccasined foot; now it heard only the hiss of meat thrown upon live coals.

The moon floated high above Cloud's Rest and the valley was full of light, yet none saw the dark figure that crept stealthily, warily, into the shadow of the crouching chaparral, keeping with the wind that blew from, not toward, the camp-fire. Once only Wa-hu-lah paused, and turned to see that she was not discovered; and from her eyes shot one swift look that would have killed, could looks deal death. Then she sped forward on the trail that led from Ah-wah-nee, with its blossoming dogwood and azalea, its buckthorn and willow, to the snows of the higher mountains, the home of her people.

Swiftly she ran, frightened by the night shapes that danced before her in the path, nor daring to slacken her pace or give a backward glance. But scarce had she passed through the spray thrown across the trail by Py-we-ack, the White Water, when she heard wild shouts rising from the half-darkness below, shouts that told her the Ah-wah-nee-chees knew that she was gone, had started in pursuit. Behind her on the trail her footprints lay naked on the yielding earth, and she knew that here in Ah-wah-nee the men of Ten-ie-ya's band knew every path that she might choose, every tree and rock where she might find a hiding-place. Already the race was won.

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