man's head, and capable of containing but two or three persons. These, therefore, were easily upset, and their owners struggling in the deep water, were easily knocked on the head with war-clubs.
These two successful battles materially strengthened the foothold which the Ojibways had obtained in this portion of the Lake Superior country. The Dakotas and Foxes received thereby a check on their war propensities, and they learned to respect the prowess and bravery of the Ojibways. Their war-parties to the lake shore became less frequent than formerly, and they were more cautious in their attacks. On the island of La Pointe, they never again secured scalp nor prisoner, for never again did they dare to land on it.
The war carried on at this period between the Ojibways and Foxes, was fierce and bloody in the extreme, and it was marked with every cruelty attendant on savage warfare. The Foxes tortured their captives in various ways, but principally by burning them by fire. Of old, the Ojibways did not practise these cruelties, and they only learned them at this period from the Foxes. The hellish custom of torturing prisoners with fire, originated amongst them as follows:—
"A noted warrior of the Ojibways was once taken prisoner by his own nephew, who was a young warrior of the Foxes, son of his own sister, who had been captured when young, adopted and married in this tribe. This young man, to show to the Foxes his utter contempt of any ties of blood existing between him and his Ojibway uncle, planted two stakes strongly in the ground, and taking his uncle by the arm, he remarked to him that he 'wished to warm him before a good fire.' He then deliberately tied his arms and legs to the two stakes, as wide apart as they could be stretched, and the unnatural nephew built a huge fire in front of his uncle. When he had burnt his naked
