Myths and Legends of Our Own Land, vol 7 | Page 5

brought it full on the head of the
wretched man, who cringed before him. The murderer's head was burst
open and he tumbled lifeless into the spring, that to this day is nauseous,
while, to perpetuate the memory of Ausaqua, the manitou smote a
neighboring rock, and from it gushed a fountain of delicious water. The
bodies were found, and the partisans of both the hunters began on that
day a long and destructive warfare, in which other tribes became
involved until mountaineers were arrayed against plainsmen through all
that region.

BESIEGED BY STARVATION
A hundred years before the white men set up their trading-posts on the
Arkansas and Platte, a band of mountain hunters made a descent on
what they took to be a small company of plainsmen, but who proved to
be the enemy in force, and who, in turn, drove the Utes--for the
aggressors were of that tribe--into the hills. Most of them took refuge
on a castellated rock on the south side of Bowlder Canon, where they
held their own for several days, rolling down huge rocks whenever an
attempt was made to storm the height; wherefore, seeing that the
mountain was too secure a stronghold to be taken in that way, the
besiegers camped about it, and, by cutting off the access of the

beleaguered party to game and to water, starved every one of them to
death.
This, too, is the story of Starved Rock, on Illinois River, near Ottawa,
Illinois. It is a sandstone bluff, one hundred and fifty feet high, with a
slope on one side only. Its summit is an acre in extent, and at the order
of La Salle his Indian lieutenant, Tonti, fortified the place and mounted
a small cannon on it. He died there afterward. After the killing of
Pontiac at Cahokia, some of his people--the Ottawas--charged the
crime against their enemies, the Illinois. The latter, being few in
number, entrenched themselves on Starved Rock, where they kept their
enemies at bay, but were unable to break their line to reach supplies.
For a time they secured water by letting down bark vessels into the
river at the end of thongs, but the Ottawas came under the bluff in
canoes and cut the cords. Unwilling to surrender, the Illinois remained
there until all had died of starvation. Bones and relics are found
occasionally at the top.
There is yet another place of which a similar narrative is extant--
namely, Crow Butte, Nebraska, which is two hundred feet high and
vertical on all sides save one, but on that a horseman may ascend in
safety. A company of Crows, flying from the Sioux, gained this citadel
and defended the path so vigorously that their pursuers gave over all
attempts to follow them, but squatted calmly on the plain and
proceeded to starve them out. On a dark night the besieged killed some
of their ponies and made lariats of their hides, by which they reached
the ground on the unguarded side of the rock. They slid down, one at a
time, and made off all but one aged Indian, who stayed to keep the
camp-fire burning as a blind. He went down and surrendered on the
next day, but the Sioux, respecting his age and loyalty, gave him
freedom.

A YELLOWSTONE TRAGEDY
Although the Indians feared the geyser basins of the upper Yellowstone
country, believing the hissing and thundering to be voices of evil spirits,
they regarded the mountains at the head of the river as the crest of the
world, and whoso gained their summits could see the happy
hunting-grounds below, brightened with the homes of the blessed. They
loved this land in which their fathers had hunted, and when they were

driven back from the settlements the Crows took refuge in what is now
Yellowstone Park. Even here the soldiers pursued them, intent on
avenging acts that the red men had committed while suffering under the
sting of tyranny and wrong. A mere remnant of the fugitive band
gathered at the head of that mighty rift in the earth known as the Grand
Canon of the Yellowstone--a remnant that had succeeded in escaping
the bullets of the soldiery,--and with Spartan courage they resolved to
die rather than be taken and carried away to pine in a distant prison.
They built a raft and placed it on the river at the foot of the upper fall,
and for a few days they enjoyed the plenty and peace that were their
privilege in former times. A short-lived peace, however, for one
morning they are aroused by the crack of rifles--the troops are upon
them.
Boarding their raft they thrust it toward the middle of the stream,
perhaps with the idea of gaining the opposite shore, but, if such is