rt of the
field his Miamis were, he saw several Pottowatomies approach the
spot where the baggage wagons were drawn up, and commence tomahawking
the children. The cries and shrieks of the mothers, as the helpless
victims perished one after the other, under their eyes, until nearly
a dozen had fallen, brought with it all the renewal of the horror
he ever experienced when women and children were the assailed, and
drove him almost frantic.

"Is that your game?" he exclaimed furiously in their own
language!--"thank God, we can play at that too."

The attempt to check the strong party assembled round the wagons,
he felt would be unavailing, but resolving to venture, single-handed,
into the encampment of the enemy, where their children had been
left unguarded, he turned his horse's head, dashed past the fort
again at his fullest speed, and with revenge and a threat of
retaliation racking his very heart strings, made for their wigwams.
Alarmed, in turn, for the safety of their squaws and children, the
murderers now desisted from their work and followed as vapidly as
they could on foot, the flight of the Miami leader. Every now and
then they stopped and fired, but at the outset all their shots were
in vain, for the captain, accustomed to that sort of warfare,
throwing himself along the neck of his horse, loading and firing
in that position, baffled all their attempts to bring him down,
while he waved his tomahawk on high, as if in triumph at the
successful issue of what he meditated. As the pursuing Indians
passed the gate of the fort, now filled with plunderers, many
intoxicated, Pee-to-tum, who had been there from the first--his
love of drink being even stronger than his thirst for revenge--came
staggering forth, suddenly aroused to a consciousness of what was
going on without, and demanded to know the cause of this new and
immediate tumult. The young Indians hastily informed him; when the
Chippewa, dropping on one knee, and holding his ramrod as a rest
upon the ground, ran his right and uninjured eye along the sight,
pulled the trigger, and brought down the horse of the fugitive,
which fell with a heavy plunge. A tremendous shout followed from
the band who had lost, four warriors by his fire, and who,
consequently deeply enraged, now made the greatest efforts to come
up with and secure him. Before he could disengage himself from his
horse, under which he lay severely wounded himself, two other
Indians came up from an opp