difficulty - he is in agony - Istagon is dead." Cries of distress accompanied this last message. At the same instant the mysterious stone burst into a thousand fragments, with a noise like thunder, which palsied all present with fear. In scattering, it filled the lodge with cinders and fire, and wounded severely the nearest of the observers. Stunned and frightened, all took flight from this scene of prodigies. The indignation and revenge which animated them a moment before against Tchatka, gave place to fear, mingled with awe and respect for him, and they no longer dared approach him. The supernatural power of the Wah-kon was acknowledged, and he who had received it from' the thunder was honored throughout the camp with the title of Wah-kon-Tangka, that is, Great Medicine.
This pretended supernatural affair is thus explained: The wily savage had been a long time preparing the part he intended performing. Some days beforehand he pierced the stone, and charged it with nearly a pound of powder. A train of powder, carefully covered over, conducted from the place in which he was seated to the hole excavated in the stone - a distance of six or eight feet. He seized a favorable instant for lighting a piece of tinder, and at the very moment that the death of the " One-eyed " was announced, he fired the train - the stone exploded.
All these subtle and perfidious means of Gaucher must appear very simple in the civilized world, where poison and powder are so often employed in all manner of crimes and misdemeanors; but among the Indians the case was widely different. They were then ignorant of the destructive power of these two articles. It is not therefore astonishing that they saw only Wah-kon - that is to say, the supernatural and incomprehensible - in all this.
At his death, Istagon left a great number of friends, especially among the warriors, who were sincerely attached to him on account of his bravery. Several among them.
T Fr. from it.