e traders that advanced the goods for me one hundred and thirty
buckskins for my ransom, which they considered equal to $260 in silver.
There were five traders that were concerned in the payment of the goods
to the Indians. One of them was a Mr. Bazedone a Spaniard, who sometimes
traded in the Illinois country, with whom I had some acquaintance. I
told him if he would satisfy the other four traders, I would give him my
note, payable in the Illinois country. He did so, and I gave him my note
for the $260, to be paid twelve months after date in the Illinois
country, and $37 more for my boarding and necessaries I could not do
without, such as a bear skin and blanket to sleep on, a shirt, hat,
tobacco and handkerchief.

My friend McCauslin took me to a Frenchman's house--he was a baker by
trade, the only baker in town--to board with him until I got an
opportunity to go home. Two days after I went to stay at the baker's,
the Indian that claimed me, his squaw and the young squaw that followed
us to the new town, came to see me and stayed three or four hours with
me. He asked me to give him some tobacco. I told him I had no money. He
thought I could get anything I wanted. I bought him a carrot of tobacco;
it weighed about three pounds; he seemed very well pleased. He and his
wife wanted me very much to go back home with them again. I told them I
could not, that I was very anxious to go home to my wife and family.
Three or four days after that they revisited me, and still insisted on
me to go home with them. I told them that I expected every day to get an
opportunity to go home. I had some doubts about going back with them; I
thought perhaps they might play some trick on me, and take me to some
other town; and their water was so bad I could not drink it--nothing but
a small pond to make use of for their drinking and cooking, about forty
or fifty yards long and about thirty yards wide. Their horses would not
only drink from, but wallow in it; the little Indian boys every day
would swim in it, and the Indians soak their deerskins in it. I could
not bear to drink it. When they would bring in a kettle of water to
drink, they would set it down on the floor. The dogs would generally
took the first drink out of the kettle. I have often seen when the dogs
would be drinking out of a kettle, an Indian would go up and kick him
off, and take up the kettle and drink after the dog. They had nothing to
eat the last week I was with them but Ind