In this manner were the returns of temporary peace affected between these two warlike people. And when once the "good road" had been broken in this manner, interchanges of friendly visits would become common, and it often happened that during the winter's intercourse of the two camps, a Dakota chief or warrior taking a fancy to an Ojibway, would exchange presents with him, and adopt him as a brother. This the Ojibways would also do. These adopted ties of relationship were most generally contracted by such as had lost relations in the course of their feud, and who, in this manner, sought to fill the void which death had made in the ranks of his dearest friends.

These ties, temporary and slight as they may seem, were much regarded by these people, and it has often happened in the course of their ever renewed warfare, that Ojibway and Dakota has saved the life of an adopted brother in times of trouble, of massacre, and battle; and whenever these ties have been disregarded or grossly violated, the occurrence is told in their lodge tales, in terms to teach the rising generation never to do likewise.

In the course of their history, there are many instances in which these temporary lulls of peace have been suddenly broken by some one or more foolish young men of either tribe, taking advantage of the security in which their former enemy temporarily reposed, and taking the life of some stray hunter. The most important of these instances and those to which the direct consequences have accrued, will be related in the future course of our narrative.

Illustrative of the manner in which these peace lulls were generally broken, and of the strong propensity existing in the Indian character for revenge, I will here introduce a tale, which I obtained from the lips of Esh-ke-bug-e-coshe, the chief of the Pillagers:

INDIAN REVENGE.

Esh-ke-bug-e-coshe, the present living chief of the Pillagers,1 relates of his deceased father, whose name was Wa-son-dun-e-qua (signifying, "Yellow Hair"), that he was not a chief by hereditary descent, but that he gained a gradual ascendancy over the minds of the fearless Pillagers, through A.D. 1852 his supreme knowledge of medicine, especially such as destroyed life. He possessed a most vindictive and revengeful temper. Injury was never inflicted on him, but he retaliated twofold; and it is said that persons who fell beneath his displeasure, lost their lives in a sudden and unaccountable manner. His people feared him; and he came to be treated with the greatest respect and first consideration. It happened one winter, that the allied camps of the Pillagers and Sandy Lake band met the camp of the Dakotas at Long Prairie, and as it had become usual, a temporary peace was effected. During the friendly intercourse, which ensued between the two tribes, a Dakota warrior of some note, belonging to the War-pe-ton band, gave presents to Yellow Hair, and requested to be termed his brother. The presents were accepted, and these two warriors of hostile tribes treated one another as brethren, during the course of the whole winter. Yellow Hair had partly learned to speak the language of his adopted brother, having formerly taken to wife, a Dakota captive woman, and he now learned to speak it with greater ease and fluency. A lasting peace was discussed between the elders of the two camps, and a mutual understanding was made between them to meet in peace during the summer, at certain points on the Mississippi River.

As the time for making sugar approached, the camps of the two tribes separated, in peace and good will, and they moved slowly back, each to their village. It happened that Yellow Hair remained behind the main camp of his people, for the purpose of hunting a few days longer in the vicinity of Long Prairie. Its camp, consisting of four lodges, was located on the woody shores of a little lake, which lay partly embosomed in a deep forest, while one end barely peeped out on the smooth and open prairie.

On the ice of this lake, the boys of the four lodges were accustomed to go out and play, throwing before them their shosh-e-mans, or little snow slides, and as no fear of an enemy prevailed in the breasts of their parents, they were allowed to go thither, whenever they listed. One morning, after Yellow Hair had started on his usual day's hunt, and the mother of his children was attending to her within-door duties, a plaintive moaning was heard at the door of the lodge, and the mother, rushing forth, beheld the outstretched form of her oldest boy, painfully crawling home-wards through the snow, bleeding and scalpless! The Dakotas had done it! The anguish cry of the mother soon gathered the inmates of the surrounding lodges to her side, and with streaming eyes the women lifted the wounded and mutilated boy into the parents' wigwam--then rushing to the lake on the bloody track which marked his course homewards, they beheld their children, three in number, lying dead and mangled, where the tomahawks of the Dakotas had struck them down.

The Ojibway hunter returned at evening from his day's chase, in time to witness the last death struggle of his murdered boy, his eldest son. He listened to the bloody tale in silence--no tear dimmed his eye for the feelings, which harrowed his heart, could not be satisfied with such a vent. The stem of his pipe seldom left his strongly compressed lips the whole of that night, and the vehemence with which he smoked was the only outward sign he gave of his emotions.

Early in the morning, the camp was raised, and they moved in the direction of Leech Lake, taking with them the corpses of the murdered children. When he had reached the village site of his people, and placed the body of his boy in its last resting place, Yellow Hair, with five comrades, returned on his trail to seek the murderers of his child. At Crow Wing they found the Sandy Lake Ojibways still collected, moving but slowly towards their village. It was not difficult for their fellows to divine their errand, for the treacherous massacre of their children was the common topic on every one's lips. It was, however, supposed that the bloody deed had been perpetrated by the prairie Dakotas, who had not been present at the peace meetings which had taken place during the winter between the hunting camps of the Ojibways and Warpeton, or lower Dakotas.

Under this impression, the chiefs of the Sandy Lake camp, invited Yellow Hair and his five followers to council, and endeavored by every argument, to dissuade them from following the warpath, as they felt anxious to keep up the peace with the Dakotas. Arguments and speeches, however, appeared to produce no effect, and as a last, resort, presents were given them sufficient, in Indian custom and parlance, to "cover the graves of their dead children." The determination of Yellow Hair, was, however, inflexible, but as he perceived that his movements would be watched, he at last silently accepted the presents, and left the camp on his homeward track, pretending to have given up his bloody designs. When arrived at a sufficient distance from the camp to prevent an early discovery of the new trail he was about to make, he left the beaten road, and turning back, he avoided the camp, and proceeded towards Long Prairie. From this place he followed up the return trail of the Dakota hunting camp, hoping to catch up with, and wreak his vengeance on them, before they reached their villages. Arrived at Sauk Lake, he discovered a small trail to branch off from the main and deeply beaten path, which he had been following. This he followed, and he soon discovered that those who moved on it consisted of but two lodges, and every one of their old encampments, which the eager warriors passed, proved to them that they were fast nearing their prey.

On the head waters of Crow River, nearly two hundred miles from the point of his departure Yellow Hair at last caught up with the two lodges of his enemies. At the first peep of dawn in the morning, the Dakotas were startled from their quiet slumbers by the fear-striking Ojibway war-whoop, and as the men arose to grasp their arms, and the women and children jumped up in affright, the bullets of the enemy fell amongst them, causing wounds and death. After the first moments of surprise, the men of the Dakotas returned the fire of the enemy, and for many minutes the fight raged hotly. An interval in the incessant firing at last took place, and the voice of a Dakota, apparently wounded, called out to the Ojibways, "Alas! Why is it that I die? I thought my road was clear before and behind me, and that the skies were cloudless above me. My mind dwelt only on good, and blood was not in my thoughts."

Yellow Hair recognized the voice of the warrior who had agreed to be his adopted brother during the late peace between their respective tribes. He understood his words, but his wrong was great, and his heart had become as hard as flint. He answered: "My brother, I too thought that the skies were cloudless above me, and I lived without fear; but a wolf came and destroyed my young; he tracked from the country of the Dakotas. My brother, for this you die!"

"My brother, I knew it not," answered the Dakota--"it was none of my people, but the wolves of the prairies."

The Ojibway warrior now quietly filled and lit his pipe, and while he smoked, the silence was only broken by the groans of the wounded, and the suppressed wail of bereaved mothers. having finished his smoke, he laid aside his pipe, and once more he called out to the Dakotas:
"My brother, have you still in your lodge a child who will take the place of my lost one, whom your wolves have devoured? I have come a great distance to behold once more my young as I once beheld him, and I return not on my tracks till I am satisfied!"

The Dakotas, thinking that he wished for a captive to adopt instead of his deceased child, and happy to escape certain destruction at such a cheap sacrifice, took one of the surviving children, a little girl, and decking it with such finery and ornaments as they possessed, they sent her out to the covert of the Ojibway warrior. The innocent little girl came forward, but no sooner was she within reach of the avenger, than he grasped her by the hair of the head and loudly exclaiming--"I sent for thee that I might do with you as your people did to my child. I wish to behold thee as I once beheld him," he deliberately scalped her alive, and sent her shrieking back to her agonized parents.

After this cold-blooded act, the fight was renewed with great fury. Yellow Hair rushed desperately forward, and by main force he pulled down one of the Dakota lodges. As he did so, the wounded Warrior, his former adopted brother, discharged his gun at his breast, which the active and wary Ojibway adroitly dodging, the contents killed one of his comrades who had followed him close at his back. Not a being in that Dakota lodge survived; the other, being bravely defended, was left standing; and Yellow Hair, with his four surviving companions, returned homeward, their vengeance fully glutted, and having committed a deed which ever after became the topic of the lodge circles of their people.

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