re
they looked the less they liked it. They called a council of
deliberation; it was unanimously resolved to retire to the Lake of the
Woods: but surely they must bring back a scalp, the women would laugh at
them! What was to be done? At length the difficulty was solved. Close by
there was a newly-made grave, a squaw had died and been buried. Excellent
idea; one scalp was as good as another. So the braves dug up the buried
squaw-, took the scalp, and departed for Rat Portage. There was a great
dance, and it was decided that each and every one of the thirty
Ojibbeways deserved well of his nation.

But the second instance is still more revolting. A very brave Indian
departed alone from the Lake of the Woods to war against the Sioux; he
wandered about, hiding in the thickets by day and coming forth at night.
One evening, being nearly starved, he saw the smoke of a wigwam; he went
towards it, and found that it was inhabited only by women and
children, of whom there were four altogether. He went up and asked for
food; they invited him to enter the lodge; they set before him the best
food they had got, and they laid a buffalo robe for his bed in the
warmest corner of the wigwam. When night came, all slept; when midnight
came the Ojibbeway quietly arose from his couch, killed the two women,
killed the two children, and departed for the Lake of the Woods with
four scalps. Oh, he was a very brave Indian, and his name went far
through the forest! I know somebody who would have gone very far to see
him hanged.

Late on the evening of the 14th August the commander of the Expedition
arrived from Fort Francis at the Portage-du-Rat. He had attempted to
cross the Lake of the Woods in a gig manned by soldiers, the weather
being too tempestuous to allow the canoe to put out, and had lost his way
in the vast maze of islands already spoken of. As we had received
intelligence at the Portage-du-Rat of his having set out from the other
side of the lake, and as hour after hour passed without bringing his boat
in sight, I got the canoe ready and, with two Indians, started to light a
beacon-fire on the top of the Devil's Rock, one of the haunted islands of
the lake, which towered high over the surrounding isles. We had not
proceeded far, however, before we fell in with the missing gig bearing
down for the portage under the guidance of an Indian who had been picked
up en route.

On the following day I received orders to start at once for Fort