g out of these harassing defiles and portages.

A WAR PARTY SURPRISED.--We took breakfast on the beach while the canoes
were for the last time being led down the outlet. We had nearly finished
it on the last morsel of the fawn, and were glancing all the while over
the placid and bright expanse, with its dark foliage, when suddenly a
small Indian canoe, very light, and successively seven others, with a
warrior in the bow and stern of each, glided from a side channel, being
the outlet into its other extremity. As soon as our position was
revealed, they stopped in utter amazement, and lighting their pipes
began to smoke; and we, nearly as much amazed, immediately put up our
flag, and Lt. Clary paraded his men. We were more than two to one on the
basis of a fight. A few moments revealed our respective relations. It
was the _Lac Courtorielle_ detachment of the Rice Lake war party, and
gave us the first intimation of its return. It was now evident that the
man on the Little Chippewa from whom we purchased the fawn was but an
advanced member of the same party. As soon as they perceived our
national character, they fired a salute and cautiously advanced. It
proved to be the brother of Mozojeed and two of his sons, with thirteen
other warriors, on their return. Each had a gun, a shot-bag and powder
horn, a scalping knife and a war club, and was painted with vermilion
lines on the face. The men were nearly naked, having little but the
_auzeaun_ and moccasons and the leather baldric that confines the knife
and necessary warlike appendages and their head gear. They had
absolutely no baggage in the canoe. When the warrior leaped out, it was
seen to be a mere elongated and ribbed dish of the white birch bark, and
a man with one hand could easily lift it. Such a display of the Indian
manners and customs on a war party, it is not one in a thousand even of
those on the frontiers is ever so fortunate as to see.

They still landed under some trepidation, but I took each personally by
the hand as they came up to my flag, and the ceremony was united in by
Lieut. Clary, and continued by them until every gentleman of my party
had been taken by the hand. The Indians understood this ceremony as a
committal of friendship. I directed tobacco to be distributed to them,
and immediately gathered them in council. They stated that the war party
had encountered signs of Sioux outnumbering them on the lower part of
the Chippewa River, and footsteps of s