rew so bold that they manned flotillas of
canoes and attacked the laden flat-boats in open day. But when any party
landed, or wherever the current swept a boat inshore, within rifle range
of the tangled forest on the banks, there was always danger. The white
riflemen, huddled together with their women, children, and animals on
the scows, were utterly unable to oppose successful resistance to foes
who shot them down at leisure, while themselves crouching in the
security of their hiding-places. The Indians practised all kinds of
tricks and stratagems to lure their victims within reach. A favorite
device was to force some miserable wretch whom they had already captured
to appear alone on the bank when a boat came in sight, signal to it, and
implore those on board to come to his rescue and take him off; the decoy
inventing some tale of wreck or of escape from Indians to account for
his presence. If the men in the boat suffered themselves to be overcome
by compassion and drew inshore, they were sure to fall victims to their
sympathy.

The boat once assailed and captured, the first action of the Indians was
to butcher all the wounded. If there was any rum or whiskey on board
they drank it, feasted on the provisions, and took whatever goods they
could carry off. They then set off through the woods with their
prisoners for distant Indian villages near the lakes. They travelled
fast, and mercilessly tomahawked the old people, the young children, and
the women with child, as soon as their strength failed under the strain
of the toil and hardship and terror. When they had reached their
villages they usually burned some of their captives and made slaves of
the others, the women being treated as the concubines of their captors,
and the children adopted by the families who wished them. Of the
captives a few might fall into the hands of friendly traders, or of the
British officers at Detroit; a few might escape, or be ransomed by their
kinsfolk, or be surrendered in consequence of some treaty. The others
succumbed to the perils of their new life, or gradually sank into a
state of stolid savagery.

Forays on the Settlements.

Naturally the ordinary Indian foray was directed against the settlements
themselves; and of course the settlements of the frontier, as it
continually shifted westward, were those which bore the brunt of the
attack and served as a shield for the more thickly peopled and peaceful
region behind. Occasionally a