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Pocumkwess, or Thoroughfare, is sixty-five miles from Campobello. There
was an Indian village there in the old times. Two young Indian girls
had a strange habit of absenting themselves all day every Sunday. No
one knew for a long time where they went or what they did. But this was
how they passed their time. They would take a canoe and go six miles
down the Grand Lake, where, at the north end, is a great ledge of rock
and sixty feet of water. There they stayed. All day long they ran about
naked or swam; they were wanton, witch-like girls, liking eccentric and
forbidden ways.
They kept this up for a long time. Once, while they were in the water,
an Indian who was hunting spied them. He came nearer and nearer,
unseen. He saw them come out of the water and sit on the shore, and
then go in again; but as he looked they grew longer and longer, until
they became snakes.
He went home and told this. (But now they had been seen by a man they
must keep the serpent form.) Men of the village, in four or five
canoes, went to find them. They found the canoe and clothes of the
girls; nothing more. A few days after, two men on Grand Lake saw the
snake-girls on shore, showing their heads over the bushes. One began to
sing.
"N'ktieh ieben iut,
Qu'spen ma ke owse."
We are going to stay in this lake
A few days, and then go down the river.
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