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Myths and Legends

a were-wolf pounced so hard on his back that he lost more. He drove the creatures to a little distance, but was glad to be safe inside of the fort again, though the officers laughed at him and called him a coward. When they went back over the route with him they were astonished to find the grass scorched where the women had fled before him, and little springs in the turf showed where they had been swallowed up. Sulphur-water was bubbling from the spot where the wolf dived into the earth when the trader's rosary fell out of his jacket. Belle Fontaine, the spot was called, long afterward.

THE ESCAPE OF FRANCOIS NAVARRE

WHEN the Hurons came to Sandwich, Michigan, in 1806, and camped near the church for the annual "festival of savages," which was religious primarily, but incidentally gastronomic, athletic, and alcoholic, an old woman of the tribe foretold to Angelique Conture that, ere long, blood would be shed freely and white men and Indians would take each others' lives. That was a reasonably safe prophecy in those days, and, though Angelique repeated it to her friends, she did not worry over it. But when the comet of 1812 appeared the people grew afraid—and with cause, for the war soon began with England. The girl's brothers fought under the red flag; her lover, Francois Navarre, under the stars and stripes.

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