steamboat arrived with goods. The captain said that a war party of Sioux headed by Big Thunder, called Little Crow by the whites, was advancing, and the Ojibways prepared to go back and warn their friends. They had not proceeded far when they discovered the foe, and quickly discharged their guns and killed two of Big Thunder's sons. The Sioux returned the fire, and mortally wounded one of the Ojibways. According to custom, the bodies of the chief's sons were ornamented, and set up with their faces towards the enemy's country, and the Ojibway was horribly mangled by the Sioux, and his scalped head placed in a kettle was suspended in front of their dead companions.
Big Thunder, disheartened by the loss of his sons, returned with his party to Kaposia, a village a few miles below Saint Paul, and on the opposite side of the Mississippi, but there were other parties on the war-path.
It was not until Friday, the 21st of May, that the death of the Ojibway was known at Lake Pokeguma. Mr. Russell, on the next Sunday, accompanied by a half-breed, and Capt. William Holcomb, subsequently the first Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota, went to the mission house to attend a religious service, and in returning the half-breed said there was a rumor that Sioux were approaching. On Monday, three young men left in a canoe, to go to the west shore of the lake, and from thence to Mille Lacs, to give intelligence to the Ojibways there resident. They took in the canoe two girls about twelve years of age, pupils of the mission school, for the purpose of bringing the canoe back to the island. Just as the three were landing, twenty or thirty Sioux with a war-whoop emerged from their hiding place and fired into the canoe. The young men instantly jumped into the water, which was shallow, returned the fire, and ran into the woods. The little girls waded into the lake and were pursued. Their
