TEE-HEE-NEH was the fairest of the daughters of Ah-wah-nee, and the happiest, for she was the chosen bride of the brave Kos-soo-kah.

When she went forth from her father’s lodge to bathe in the shadowy depths of Ke-koo-too-yem, the Sleeping Water, her step was light as the touch of a wind-swept leaf upon the rocks. When she stooped to lave her cheeks in the cool spray, her dark hair fell about her shoulders like a silken web, and the water mirror showed her a pair of laughing eyes of the color of ripened acorns, and in them the soft light of an Indian summer day. The sound of her voice was as the patter of rain on green leaves, and her heart was fearless and full of love.

No other woman of the tribe could weave such baskets as grew by the magic skill of her fingers, and she alone knew the secret of interweaving the bright feathers of the red-headed woodpecker and the topknots of mountain quail. Her acorn bread was always sweetest, the berries she gathered ripest, the deerskin she tanned softer than any other; and all because of the love in her heart, for she knew that Kos-soo-kah would eat of her bread and fruit, would drink from the baskets she wove, would wear upon his feet the moccasins she made.

Kos-soo-kah was a hunter, fearless and bold, sure with bow and spear, always fortunate in the chase. In his veins ran the blood that surges hot when there are daring deeds to do, and of all the young chiefs of Ah-wah-nee he had the greatest power among his people. Like the wooing of the evening star by the crescent moon was the mating of Tee-hee-neh with Kos-soo-kah; and when the young chief gathered together robes of squirrel and deerskin and of the skins of water-fowl, arrows and spear-heads, strings of coral and bear teeth, and gave them as a marriage token to Tee-hee-neh’s father, the old chief looked upon him with favor.

This was their marriage. But before Tee-hee-neh should go with Kos-soo-kah to his lodge there must be a great feast, and all day long Ah-wah-nee was astir with signs of preparation.

From many shady places came a sound like the tap-tap-tapping of woodpeckers, where the older women sat upon smooth, flat rocks pounding dried acorns into meal to make the acorn bread; and the younger women went with their baskets to the meadows and woods for grass seeds, herbs and wild honey.

Early in the morning Kos-soo-kah left his lodge and gathered about him the strongest of the young braves to go forth into the forest and net the grouse, and seek the bear and deer in their haunts, for this was the man’s share of the marriage feast. While his hunters strung their bows and fastened arrow-heads to the feathered shafts, Kos-soo-kah stole away for a last word with Tee-hee-neh, his bride; and when they parted it was with the promise that at the end of the day’s hunt Kos-soo-kah should drop an arrow from the cliff between Cho-look, the High Fall, and Le-ham-i-te, the CaÑon of the Arrow-wood. By the number of feathers it bore, Tee-hee-neh could tell what the kill had been.

The morning mists were still tangled in the pines when Kos-soo-kah and his hunters began to climb the trail that cut into the heart of the forest. From a covert spot Tee-hee-neh watched her lover disappear through the cleft in the northern wall, where the arrow-wood grows thick; then she joined the other women and worked with a light heart until long shadows stretched across the meadow and warned her of the hour when she was to be near the foot of Cho-look to receive the message from Kos-soo-kah.

Far over the mountains Kos-soo-kah laughed loud with a hunter’s pride as he bound to his swiftest arrow all the feathers of a grouse’s wing. Sped by a hunter’s pride and a lover’s pride he leaped along the rocky trail, far in advance of the youthful braves of his band who bore among them the best of the kill. Eagerly he watched the western sky, fearful lest the sun’s last kiss should tinge the brow of Tis-sa-ack before he reached the cliff whence his bow should let fly the message to the waiting one below.

The frightened quail fluttered in his path unseen. A belated vulture, skimming the fading sky, seemed not to be in motion. So swiftly Kos-soo-kah ran, the wind stood still to let him pass.

He reached the valley wall at last, his strength well spent but still enough to pull his bow to a full half-circle. Poised for an instant, the feathered shaft caught on its tip a sun ray, then flew downward; but though mighty and sure the force that sent it, no message came to the faithful Tee-hee-neh.

Hour after hour she waited, the joy in her heart changing to a nameless fear as the blue sky faded gray, and the gray went purple in the thickening dusk, and yet no sign, no sound of the returning hunters.

“Kos-soo-kah! Kos-soo-kah!” trembled her voice in the stillness. Only a weird echo answered, “Kos-soo-kah.”

Perhaps they had wandered far, and Kos-soo-kah could not reach the cliff till the night shadows had crept out of the valley, and over the tops of the mountains. Perhaps even now he was returning down the CaÑon of the Arrow-wood. This she whispered to a heart that gave no answering hope.

She would go forward to meet him, and hear from his lips the message which the arrow failed to bring. As she hurried along the narrow trail, clinging to the slanting ledges, pushing aside the overhanging branches, she called and called, “Kos-soo-kah!”

Now and again she stopped to listen for the sound of voices, or of footsteps, but only the cry of a night bird or the crackling of dry twigs stirred the still air.

Trembling with uncertainty and fear, she reached the top of the sharp ascent. There by the light of the stars she saw fresh footprints in the loose, moist earth. Her heart told her they were his; her quick eye told her they went toward the cliff, but did not return. Crouching there beside them, she called again, “Kos-soo-kah!” Not even an echo answered the despairing cry.

Slowly she crept forward, following the fresh trail to the edge of the wall. She leaned far over, and there on a mound of fallen rock lay her lover, motionless, nor answering her call. Tight in his grasp was the spent bow, the sign of a promise kept.

As she looked, there came again to Tee-hee-neh’s mind the dull roar of rending rock, the low moan of falling earth, that ran through the valley at the sunset hour. Now she knew that as Kos-soo-kah drew his bow to speed the messenger of love, the ground beneath his feet had given way, carrying him with the fatal avalanche.

The girl’s heart no longer beat fast with fear. It seemed not to beat at all. But there was no time for grief,—perhaps Kos-soo-kah had not ceased to breathe. On the topmost point of rock she lighted a signal fire, and forced its flames high into the dark, flashing a call for help. It would be long, she knew, before any one could come; but this was the only chance to save Kos-soo-kah.

Hours passed. With feverish energy she piled dry branches high upon the signal fire, nor let its wild beckonings rest a moment. At last old men came from the valley, and the young braves from the mountains bearing with them the carcasses of deer and bear.

With their hunting-knives they cut lengths of tamarack, and lashed them together with thongs of hide from the deer killed for the marriage feast. By means of this pole they would have lowered over the edge of the cliff a strong young brave but that Tee-hee-neh pushed him aside and took his place. Hers must be the voice to whisper in Kos-soo-kah’s ear the first word of hope; hers the hand to push aside the rocks that pinioned his body; hers the face his slowly opening eyes should see.

They lowered her to his side; and, loosing the cords that bound her, she knelt beside him, whispering in his ear, “Kos-soo-kah!” No sound came from the cold, set lips. The wide-open eyes stared unseeing at the sky. Tee-hee-neh knew that he was dead.

She did not cry aloud after the manner of Indian women in their grief, but gently bound the helpless form with the deerskin cords and raised it as high as her arms could reach when the pole was drawn upward; then waited in silence until she was lifted by the willing hands above.

When she found herself again at Kos-soo-kah’s side, she stood for an instant with eyes fixed upon the loved form, there in the cold, starless dawn of her marriage day; then with his name upon her lips she fell forward upon his breast. They drew her away, but the spirit of Tee-hee-neh had followed the spirit of Kos-soo-kah.

The two were placed together upon the funeral pyre, and with them was burned all that had been theirs. In Kos-soo-kah’s hand was the bow, but the arrow could not be found. The lovers had spirited it away. In its stead they left a pointed rock lodged in the cliff between Cho-look, the High Fall, and Le-ham-i-te, the CaÑon of the Arrow-wood, in token of Kos-soo-kah’s fulfilled pledge. This rock is known to the children of Ah-wah-nee as Hum-moo, the Lost Arrow.