It was a grand gala-day with the O-kak-oni-tas and the Gra-sop-o-itas. The mighty chiefs had been reconciled, and the wealth, power and beauty of the two realms turned out in all the splendor of fresh paint and brilliant feathers, to do honor to the occasion. The young princes were to be put to death. The lake in the vicinity of the rock was alive with canoes. The hills in the neighborhood were crowded with spectators. The two old kings sat in the same splendid barge, and followed close after the bark canoe in which the lovers were being conveyed to their living tomb. Silently they gazed into each other's faces and smiled. For each other had they lived; with one another were they now to die. Without food, without water, without light, they were hurried into their bridal chamber, and huge stones rolled against the only entrance. Evening after evening the chiefs sat upon the grave portals of their children. At first they were greeted with loud cries, extorted by the gnawing of hunger and the agony of thirst. Gradually the cries gave way to low moans, and finally, after ten days had elapsed, the tomb became as silent as the lips of the lovers. Then the huge stones were, by the command of the two kings, rolled away, and a select body of warriors ordered to enter and bring forth their lifeless forms. But the west wind had sprung up, and just as the stones were taken from the entrance, a low, deep, sorrowful sigh issued from the mouth of the cave. Startled and terrified beyond control, the warriors retreated hastily from the spot; and the weird utterances continuing, no warriors could be found brave enough to sound the depths of that dreadful sepulchre. Day after day canoes crowded about the mouth of the cave, and still the west wind blew, and still the sighs and moans continued to strike the souls of the trembling warriors. Finally, no canoe dared approach the spot. In paddling past they would always veer their canoes seaward, and hurry past with all the speed they could command. Centuries passed away; the level of the lake had sunk many feet; the last scions of the O-kak-oni-tas and the Gra-sop-o-itas had mouldered many years in the burying-grounds of their sires, and a new race had usurped their old hunting grounds. Still no one had ever entered the haunted cave. One day, late in the autumn of 1849, a company of emigrants on their way to California, were passing, toward evening, the month of the cavern, and hearing a strange, low, mournful sigh, seeming to issue thence, they landed their canoe and resolved to solve the mystery. Lighting some pitch-pine torches, they proceeded cautiously to explore the cavern. For a long time they could discern nothing. At length, in the furthest corner of the gloomy recess, they found two human skeletons, with their bony arms entwined, and their fleshless skulls resting upon each other's bosoms. The lovers are dead, but the old cave still echoes with their dying sobs.