I was sitting on the beach one afternoon with old Louisa Flansouay (FranÇois) and the other Indians, when she suddenly rose with an air of great determination, saying to me, “Come into camp and I tell you a story!” (No story can ever be told in the open air; if the narrator be not under cover, evil spirits may easily take possession of her.)

I gladly followed old Louisa, who is a noted story-teller, and heard the following brief but thrilling tale.

Many, many years ago a great chief had an only daughter who was so handsome that she was always known by the name of “Uliske,” which is to say “Beauty.” All the young men of the tribe sought her hand in marriage, but she would have nothing to say to them. Her father vainly implored her to make a choice; but she only answered him, “No husband whom I could take, would ever be any good to me.”

Every year at a certain season, she wandered off by herself and was gone for many days; where she went no one could discover, nor could she be restrained when the appointed time came round.

At last, however, she yielded to persuasion and took a husband. For a time all went well. When the season for her absence was at hand, she told her husband that she must go. He said he would go with her, and as she made no objection, they set out on the following morning and travelled until they came to a lovely, lonely lake. A point of land ran out into the water, well wooded and provided with a pleasant wigwam. Here Uliske beached the canoe; they went ashore and remained for two days and nights, when the husband disappeared. Uliske in due time returned to her tribe and reported his loss. Her father and his followers sought long and anxiously, but no trace of him was ever found. Later on, Uliske took a second husband, a third and a fourth, always quietly yielding to persuasion, and always saying as at first, that no husband whom she took could ever be any good to her. One after the other visited with her the peninsula in the lake and disappeared in the same sudden and mysterious way.

The fifth husband was known as “U-el-um-bek,” “the handsome, the brave,” and he made up his mind to solve the strange riddle of his predecessors. When he and Uliske reached the peninsula, he said that, while she got supper, he would keep on in the canoe and see what fish or game he could find. He went but a little way, then drew the canoe up among the bushes and searched in every direction till he found a well beaten foot-path. “Now I shall know all,” he said, and hid himself behind a tree. Soon Uliske came from the wigwam and went down to the water. Undressing herself, and letting down her long black hair, she began to beat upon the water with a stick and to sing an ancient Indian song. As she sang, the water began to heave and boil, and coil after coil slowly uprose above the surface a huge Wi-will-mekq’, a loathly worm, its great horns as red as fire. It swam ashore and clasped Uliske in its scaly folds, wrapping her from head to foot, while she caressed it with a look of delight. Then U-el-um-bek knew all. The Wi-willmekq’ had cast a spell upon Uliske so that to her it appeared in the likeness of a beautiful young hero. The worm had destroyed her four husbands, and, had he not been prudent, would have drowned him as well. Waiting until Uliske was alone, he returned to the wigwam before she had had time to wash off the slimy traces of Wi-will-mekq’s embraces, and charged her with her infatuation. Giving her no time to answer, he hurriedly chewed a magic root with which he had provided himself, flung it into the lake, thus preventing any attack as he crossed the water, got into the canoe and paddled away, leaving Uliske to her fate, well knowing that as she had failed to supply her loathly lover with a fresh victim, she must herself become the prey of his keen appetite.

Rejoining his tribe, he frankly told his story. Even the chief declared that he had done well, and of Uliske nothing more was ever heard.