ile there.[87]

[Footnote 87: Eight years afterwards, namely, in July, 1846, this lawless
vagabond waylaid and shot my brother James, having concealed himself in
a cedar thicket.]

Tanner was stolen by old Kishkako, the Saginaw, from Kentucky, when he
was a boy of about nine years old. He is now a gray-headed,
hard-featured old man, whose feelings are at war with every one on
earth, white and red. Every attempt to meliorate his manners and Indian
notions, has failed. He has invariably misapprehended them, and is more
suspicious, revengeful, and bad tempered than any Indian I ever knew.
Dr. James, who made, by the way, a mere pack-horse of Indian opinions of
him, did not suspect his fidelity, and put many things in his narrative
which made the whites about St. Mary's call him an old liar. This
enraged him against the Doctor, whom he threatened to kill. He had
served me awhile as an interpreter, and, while thus employed, he went to
Detroit, and was pleased with a country girl, who was a chambermaid at
old Ben. Woodworth's hotel. He married her, but, after having one child,
and living with him a year, she was glad to escape with life, and, under
the plea of a visit, made some arrangement with the ladies of Fort Brady
to slip off, on board of a vessel, and so eluded him. The Legislature
afterwards granted her a divorce. He blamed me for the escape, though I
was entirely ignorant of its execution, and knew nothing of it, till it
had transpired.

In this trip to the North, I called on the Indians to show me their old
fields and gardens at every point.

It was found that there were _eight_ geographical bands, consisting of
separate villages, living on the ceded tract. The whole population of
these did not exceed, by a close count, 569 souls. The population had
evidently deteriorated from the days of the French and British rule,
when game was abundant. This was the tradition they gave, and was proved
by the comparatively large old fields, not now in cultivation,
particularly at Portagunisee, at various points on the Straits of St.
Mary's, and at Grand Island and its coasts on Lake Superior.

They cultivate chiefly, the potato, and retire in the spring to certain
points, where the _Acer saccharinum_ abounds, and all rely on the
quantity of maple sugar made. This is eaten by all, and appears to have
a fattening effect, particularly on the children. The season of
sugar-making is indeed a sort of carnival, at which there is ge