Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 2).djvu/210

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204
Early Western Travels
[Vol. 2

jection to fight me. The officer still refusing, Silver Heels told him, that he thought himself a warrior when he ordered one of his white slaves to be flogged for a {166} breach of martial law, but that he had now forgot the character he then assumed, or he certainly would have fought him: and looking very sternly, added, that he had a great mind to make him change his climate; but as that mode of proceeding would not answer his purpose, and sufficiently expose him among his brother warriors, he might walk home as soon as he pleased; and that to-morrow morning he would come to the fort with the horse's scalp, and relate the circumstance. The officer was rejoiced to escape so well, though he was obliged to walk a distance of three miles.

The next morning Silver Heels arrived, and asked to see the officer, but was denied admission into his presence. Some of his brother officers came out, and enquired his business; he related to them the circumstance between the officer and himself, and exhibited the trophy; adding, that to-morrow he intended going to war, and should make a point of taking an old woman prisoner, whom he should send to take the command of the fort, as the great chief was only fit to fight with his dog, or cat, when he was eating, lest they should have more than him. Then asking for some rum (which was given him), he left the fort to fulfil his promise, but was soon after killed in an engagement, fighting manfully at the head of a party of Mohawks, near the Bloody Pond, joining to Lord Loudon's road, in the way to Albany.

Just before the frost set in, I returned to Montreal, and visited my old Cahnuaga friends, where I amused myself in the Indian way, as I always preferred their society to the Canadians; notwithstanding, I occasionally mixed in