Once a hunter in the mountains heard a noise at night like a rushing
wind outside the cabin, and on going out he found that an eagle had
just alighted on the drying pole and was tearing at the body of a deer
hanging there. Without thinking of the danger, he shot the eagle. In
the morning he took the deer and started back to the settlement,
where he told what he had done, and the chief sent out some men to
bring in the eagle and arrange for an Eagle dance. They brought back
the dead eagle, everything was made ready, and that night they started
the dance in the townhouse.
About midnight there was a whoop outside and a strange warrior came
into the circle and began to recite his exploits. No one knew him, but
they thought he had come from one of the farther Cherokee towns. He
told how he had killed a man, and at the end of the story he gave
a hoarse yell, Hi! that startled the whole company, and one of the
seven men with the rattles fell over dead. He sang of another deed,
and at the end straightened up with another loud yell. A second
rattler fell dead, and the people were so full of fear that they
could not stir from their places. Still he kept on, and at every
pause there came again that terrible scream, until the last of the
seven rattlers fell dead, and then the stranger went out into the
darkness. Long afterward they learned from the eagle killer that it
was the brother of the eagle shot by the hunter.