It lies on the watershed between the headwaters of the
Maumee and the Wabash, a cone-shaped mound and a circling wall within
which there was always wood piled for the beacon light, the Great Gleam,
the Wabashiki, which could be seen the country round for a two days'
journey. The Light-Keeper was very pleased with our company and told us
old tales half the night long, about how the Beacon had been built and
how it was taken by turns by the Round Heads and the Painted Turtles. He
asked us also if we had seen anything of a party of Lenni-Lenape which
he had noted the day before, crossing the bottoms about an hour after he
had sighted us. He thought they must have gone around by Crow Creek,
avoiding the village, and that we should probably come up with them the
next morning, which proved to be the case.
"They rose upon us suddenly as we dropped down to the east fork of the
Maumee, and asked us rudely where we were going. They had no right, of
course, but they were our elders, to whom it is necessary to be
respectful, and they were rather terrifying, with their great bows, tall
as they were, stark naked except for a strip of deerskin, and their
feathers on end like the quills of an angry porcupine.
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