being offended by some one, and which also excites them to bite.
The Indians say that when a woman is in labour, holding the tail of a rattle-snake in her hand, and shaking the rattles, assists her delivery. It is always observable that the Indians take out the bag which contains [150] the poison of this venomous reptile, and carry it alive in their medicine box when they go to war.
This unfortunate accident retarded our journey till the unhappy sufferer relieved himself by cutting out the wounded part from the calf of his leg, and applying salt and gunpowder, and binding it up with the leaves of the red willow tree; he was soon able to proceed, bearing the pain with that fortitude for which the Savages are so eminently distinguished.
At the close of the next day we encamped near the river, and it rained very hard: the Indians made some bark huts. One of them walking some distance in the woods, discovered a small loghouse, in which he found a white man, with his arms cut off, lying on his back. We conjectured he had been settled at the spot, and killed by a bad Indian, which must have happened very recently, as he was not putrid. Before our departure we buried him.
The next day we arrived at the Forks of the Mississippi,
where were two hundred Indians of the nation of the
Renards, or Foxes, on horseback, armed with spears,
bows and arrows. They did not seem pleased with our
appearance, which Warbishar, the chief of our band, told me.[1] Just before we landed they dismounted, and sur-
————
- ↑ The Foxes had been largely won to the American interest by the efforts
of Godefroy Linctot, Sr., their trader at Prairie du Chien, and the emissaries of
George Rogers Clark from the Illinois country.
Wabasha was a famous Sioux chief, first mentioned by the French com-
