lected to march against, and drive further back, their numerous foes. The fur trade has been the mainspring and cause which has led the Ojibways westward and more westward, till they have become possessed through conquest, and a persevering, never-relaxing pressure on their enemies, of the vast tracts of country over which they are scattered at the present day. Their present proud position in this respect they have not gained without an equivalent price in blood and life, and the Ojibway exclaims with truth when asked by the grasping "Long Knife" to sell his country, that "it is strewed with the bones of his fathers, and enriched with their blood."
Their wars at this period were generally carried on by small and desultory parties, and it was only on occasions when smarting under some severe blow or loss, inflicted by their enemies, that the warriors of the tribe would collect under some noted leader, and marching into the Dakota or Fox country, make a bold and effective strike, which would long be remembered, and keep their enemies in fear and check.
A circumstance happened, about this time, which, in the regular course of our narrative, we will here relate. A few lodges of Ojibway hunters under the guidance of Bi-aus-wah, a leading man of the tribe, claiming the Loon Totem, was one spring encamped at Kah-puk-wi-e-kah, a bay on the lake shore situated forty miles west of La Pointe.
Early one morning the camp was attacked by a large war-party of Foxes, and the men, women and children all murdered, with the exception of a lad and an old man, who, running into a swamp, and becoming fastened in the bog and mire, were captured and taken in triumph by the Foxes to their village, there to suffer death with all the barbarous tortures which a savage could invent.
Bi-aus-wah, at the time of the attack, was away on a hunt, and he did not return till towards evening. His
