night and day, reached St. Louis, and
ordered up troops from Jefferson Barracks, for the protection of the
settlement. In this trip, he passed through the centre of the tribe, and
incurred some extraordinary risks. He then returned up the Illinois, and
through Lake Michigan, and reached the _Butte des Morts_ in an
incredibly short space of time. Within a few days, the Mississippi
settlements were covered; the Winnebagoes were overawed, and the
business of the treaty was resumed, and successfully concluded on the
11th of August.

During the long assemblage of the Indians on these grounds, I was
sitting one afternoon, in the Governor's log shanty, with the doors
open, when a sharp cry of murder suddenly fell on our ears. I sprang
impulsively to the spot, with Major Forsyth, who was present. Within
fifty yards, directly in front of the house, stood two Indians, who
were, apparently, the murderers, and a middle aged female, near them,
bleeding profusely. I seized one of them by his long black hair, and,
giving him a sudden wrench, brought him to his back in an instant, and,
placing my knees firmly on his breast, held him there, my hand clenched
in his hair. The Major had done something similar with the other fellow.
Inquiry proved one of these men to be the perpetrator of the deed. He
had drawn his knife to stab his mother-in-law, she quickly placed her
arms over her breast and chest and received the wounds, two strokes, in
them, and thus saved her life. It was determined, as her life was saved,
though the wounds were ghastly, to degrade the man in a public
assemblage of all the Indians, the next day, by _investing him with a
petticoat_, for so unmanly an act. The thing was, accordingly, done with
great ceremony. The man then sneaked away in this imposed _matchcota_,
in a stolid manner, slowly, all the Indians looking stedfastly, but
uttering no sound approvingly or disapprovingly.

I embraced the opportunity of the delay created by the Winnebago
outbreak, and the presence of the Stockbridges on the treaty ground, to
obtain from them some outlines of their history and language. Every day,
the chiefs and old men came to my quarters, and spent some time with me.
Metoxon gave me the words for a vocabulary of the language, and,
together with Quinney, entered so far into its principles, and furnished
such examples, as led me, at once, to perceive that it was of the
Algonquin type, near akin, indeed, to the Chippewa, and the co