accustomed, by
the permission of Government, to deal out occasionally to them, were now
cut off by a scarcity in the Commissary's department. The frequent
levies of the militia during the summer campaign, and the reinforcement
of the garrison by the troops from Port Howard, had drawn so largely on
the stores at this post that there was necessity for the most rigid
economy in the issuing of supplies.

Foreseeing this state of things, Mr. Kinzie, as soon as the war was at
an end, commissioned Mr. Kercheval, then sutler at Fort Howard, to
procure him a couple of boat-loads of corn, to be distributed among the
Indians. Unfortunately, there was no corn to be obtained from Michigan;
it was necessary to bring it from Ohio, and by the time it at length
reached Green Bay (for in those days business was never done in a hurry)
the navigation of the Fox River had closed, and it was detained there,
to be brought up the following spring.

As day after day wore on and "the silver" did not make its appearance,
the Indians were advised by their Father to disperse to their
hunting-grounds to procure food, with the promise that they should be
summoned immediately on the arrival of Governor Porter; and this advice
they followed.

While they had been in our neighborhood, they had more than once asked
permission to dance the _scalp-dance,_ before our door. This is the most
frightful, heart-curdling exhibition that can possibly be imagined. The
scalps are stretched on little hoops, or frames, and carried on the end
of slender poles. These are brandished about in the course of the dance,
with cries, shouts, and furious gestures. The women, who commence as
spectators, becoming excited with the scene and the music which their
own discordant notes help to make more deafening, rush in, seize the
scalps from the hands of the owners, and toss them frantically about,
with the screams and yells of demons. I have seen as many as forty or
fifty scalps figuring in one dance. Upon one occasion one was borne by
an Indian who approached quite near me, and I shuddered as I observed
the long, fair hair, evidently that of a woman. Another Indian had the
skin of a human hand, stretched and prepared with as much care as if it
had been some costly jewel. When these dances occurred, as they
sometimes did, by moonlight, they were peculiarly horrid and revolting.

* * * * *

Amid so many events of a painful character there were n