particular productions, mineral and vegetable, of the scene of operations. When it is considered that this species of knowledge, shrewdness, and sagacity is possessed on both sides, and that the nations at war watch each other as a lynx for its prey, it may be conceived that many of these border war parties are either light skirmishes, sudden on-rushes, or utter failures. It is seldom that a close, well-contested, long-continued hand battle is fought. To kill a few men, tear off their scalps in haste, and retreat with these trophies, is a brave and honorable trait with them, and may be boasted of in their triumphal dances and warlike festivities.
"To glean the details of these movements would be to acquire the modern history of the tribe, which induced me to direct my inquiries to the subject; but the lapse of even forty or fifty years, had shorn traditions of most of these details, and often left the memory of results only. The Chippeways told me that this chief had led them seven times to successful battle against the Sioux and Outagamies, and that he had been wounded thrice—once in the thigh, once in the right shoulder, and a third time in the side and breast, being a glancing shot. His war party consisted either of volunteers, who had joined his standard at the war dance, or of auxiliaries, who had accepted his messages of wampum and tobacco, and came forward in a body to the appointed place of rendezvous. These parties varied greatly in number. His first party consisted of but forty men; his greatest and most renowned of three hundred, who were mustered from the villages on the shores of the lake, as far east as St. Mary's Falls."
This last party is the one which Waub-o-jeeg led in the battle of the St. Croix, an account of which Mr. Schoolcraft proceeded to give. Respecting the details of this important occurrence, however, it appears that he has received but meagre information, as he finishes it in a single paragraph.
