turned safely to his people, but he never would give but the most supernatural account of his manner of escape—tales that were not believed by his own people. It was at first the general impression that he had deserted his party before the fight came on, but the Dakotas, at a future peace-meeting with the Ojibways, stated that there were sixteen warriors who went into the poplar grove, as counted by their scouts, and there were found sixteen holes from which the warriors fought, in one of which remained only the bundle of the man who had so miraculously escaped. The Dakotas acknowledged that they lost thirty-three of their warriors in this desperate engagement, besides many maimed for life.
Since the execution of the Indian at Fond du Lac in 1797, by the northwestern traders for killing a Canadian "coureur du bois," the life of a white man had been held sacred by the Ojibways, and one could traverse any portion of their country, in perfect safety, and without the least molestation. In the year 1824, however, four white men were killed by the Ojibways, under circumstances so peculiar, as to deserve a brief account in this chapter.
An Ojibway named Nub-o-beence, or Little Broth, residing on the shores of Lake Superior near the mouth of Ontonagun River, lost a favorite child through sickness. He was deeply stricken with grief, and nothing would satisfy him but to go and shed the blood of the hereditary enemies of his tribes, the Dakotas. He raised a small war party, mostly from the Lac du Flambeau district, and they floated down the Chippeway River to its entry, where, for several days they watched without success on the banks of the Mississippi, for the appearance of an enemy. The leader had endured hardships, and came the great distance of five hundred miles to shed blood to the manes of his dead child, and long after his fellows had become weary of waiting and watching, and anxious to return home, did he
