his supreme knowledge of medicine, especially such as destroyed life. He possessed a most vindictive and revengeful temper. Injury was never inflicted on him, but he retaliated twofold; and it is said that persons who fell beneath his displeasure, lost their lives in a sudden and unaccountable manner. His people feared him; and he came to be treated with the greatest respect and first consideration. It happened one winter, that the allied camps of the Pillagers and Sandy Lake band met the camp of the Dakotas at Long Prairie, and as it had become usual, a temporary peace was effected. During the friendly intercourse which ensued between the two tribes, a Dakota warrior of some note, belonging to the War-pe-ton band, gave presents to Yellow Hair, and requested to be termed his brother. The presents were accepted, and these two warriors of hostile tribes treated one another as brethren, during the course of the whole winter. Yellow Hair had partly learned to speak the language of his adopted brother, having formerly taken to wife, a Dakota captive woman, and he now learned to speak it with greater ease and fluency. A lasting peace was discussed between the elders of the two camps, and a mutual understanding was made between them to meet in peace during the summer, at certain points on the Mississippi River.
As the time for making sugar approached, the camps of the two tribes separated, in peace and good-will, and they moved slowly back, each to their village. It happened that Yellow Hair remained behind the main camp of his people, for the purpose of hunting a few days longer in the vicinity of Long Prairie. His camp, consisting of four lodges, was located on the woody shores of a little lake, which lay partly embosomed in a deep forest, while one end barely peeped out on the smooth and open prairie.
On the ice of this lake, the boys of the four lodges were accustomed to go out and play, throwing before them their
