with another warrior named She-shebe (who had distinguished himself on this bloody occasion), a Dakota war party suddenly fell on them early one morning, and being unprepared to resist the attack, they, with their wives and children, were killed and scalped. Waub-o-jeeg suffered death at the first fire; but She-shebe had time to grasp his gun, and as his foes were eagerly rushing forward to finish their work and secure his scalp, he fired in their midst, killing one Dakota and wounding another, according to their after acknowledgment. The death of these two noted warriors, with their families, created a general excitement throughout the villages of the whole tribe, and the relatives of Waub-o-jeeg lost no time in making preparations to revenge the blow on their enemies. Ba-he-sig-au-dib-ay, or Curly Head, chief of the Lower Mississippi, or Gull Lake Ojibways, took the matter especially in hand, and late in the fall he collected the Sandy Lake warriors at Gull Lake. During the summer, Esh-ke-bug-e-coshe, or Flat Mouth, the Pillager chief, had lost a nephew at the hands of the Dakotas, and to revenge his death, he also collected his warriors, and these two noted chiefs met by appointment, and joined their respective forces at Crow Wing, from which place they jointly led one hundred and sixty warriors into the Dakota country.
In those days, the lands which the Ojibways lately sold to the United States government, lying between Long Prairie and Watab Rivers, on the west side of the Mississippi, and now[1] forming the home of the Winnebagoes, were favorite hunting grounds of the Sisseton and Warpeton Dakotas. They were accustomed to rove through it each autumn, congregated in large camps, for greater security against the Ojibways. On this occasion, the war party of Curly Head and Flat Mouth first discovered the Dakota trail, at the western extremity of Long Prairie,
- ↑ A.D. 1852.
