Myths and Legends of Our Own Land, vol 8 | Page 7

saver of crops and game for
winter, a wise chief, trusted and loved by his people. While hunting,
one day, the tutelary spirit of the valley--the lovely Tisayac--revealed
herself to him, and from that moment he knew no peace, nor did he
care for the well-being of his people; for she was not as they were: her
skin was white, her hair was golden, and her eyes like heaven; her
speech was as a thrushsong and led him to her, but when he opened his
arms she rose lighter than any bird and vanished in the sky.
Lacking his direction Yo Semite became a desert, and when Tisayac
returned she wept to see the corn lands grown with bushes and bears
rooting where the huts had been. On a mighty dome of rock she knelt
and begged the Great Spirit to restore its virtue to the land. He did so,
for, stooping from the sky, he spread new life of green on all the valley
floor, and smiting the mountains he broke a channel for the pent- up
meltings of the snows, and the water ran and leaped far down, pooling
in a lake below and flowing off to gladden other land. The birds
returned, the flowers sprang up, corn swayed in the breeze, and the
people, coming back, gave the name of Tisayac to South Dome, where
she had knelt.
Then came the chief home again, and, hearing that the spirit had
appeared, was smitten with love more strong than ever. Climbing to the
crest of a rock that spires three thousand feet above the valley, he
carved his likeness there with his hunting-knife, so that his memory
might live among his tribe. As he sat, tired with his work, at the foot of
the Bridal Veil, he saw, with a rainbow arching around her, the form of
Tisayac shining from the water. She smiled on him and beckoned. His
quest was at an end. With a cry of joy he sprang into the fall and
disappeared with Tisayac. Two rainbows quivered on the falling water,
and the sun went down.

THE GOVERNOR'S RIGHT EYE
Old Governor Hermenegildo Salvatierra, of Presidio, California,
sported only one eye--the left--because the other had been shot out by
an Indian arrow. With his sound one he was gazing into the fire, on a
windy afternoon in the rainy season, when a chunky man in a
sou'wester wasushered into his presence, and after announcing that he
was no other than Captain Peleg Scudder, of the schooner General
Court, from Salem, he was made welcome in a manner quite out of
proportion in its warmth to the importance that such a disclosure would
have for the every-day citizen.
He was hailed with wassail and even with wine. The joy of the
commandant was so great that at the third bowl he sang a love ballad,
in a voice somewhat cracked, and got on the table to teach the Yankee
how to dance the cachuca. The law forbade any extended stay of
Americans in Spanish waters, and the General Court took herself off
that very night-- for this, mind you, was in 1797, when the Spaniard
ruled the farther coast.
Next day Salvatierra appeared before his astonished people with a right
eye. The priests attached to the fort gave a special service of praise, and
told the miracle to the red men of their neighborhood as an illustration
of the effect of goodness, prayer, and faith. People came from far and
near that they might go to church and see this marvel for themselves.
But, alas, for the governor's repute for piety! It soon began to be
whispered around that the new eye was an evil one; that it read the
deepest thoughts of men with its inflexible, cold stare; that under its
influence some of the fathers had been betrayed into confessing things
that the commandant had never supposed a clergyman to be guilty of.
The people feared that eye, and ascribed such rogueries to the old man
as had been entirely foreign to his nature hitherto.
This common fear and suspicion reacted, inevitably, and Salvatierra
began, unconsciously, to exhibit some of the traits that his subjects said
he possessed. He changed slowly from the indulgent parent to the stern
and exacting law-giver. He did not know, however, what the people
had been saying about him, and never suspected that his eye was likely
to get him into trouble.
It was a warm night and he had gone to bed with his windows open--
windows that opened from his garden, and were level, at the bottom,

with the floor. A shadowy form stole along the gravel path and entered
one of these windows. It was that of a mission Indian. He had gathered
from the talk of