em, living like any other young warrior; his Indian name was
Black Snake, and he married a sister of the great war-chief, Little
Turtle. He fought with the rest of the Miamis, and by the side of Little
Turtle, in the victories the Northwestern Indians gained over Harmar and
St. Clair, and during the last battle he killed several soldiers with
his own hand. Afterwards, by some wayward freak of mind, he became
harassed by the thought that perhaps he had slain some of his own
kinsmen; dim memories of his childhood came back to him; and he resolved
to leave his Indian wife and half-breed children and rejoin the people
of his own color. Tradition relates that on the eve of his departure he
made his purpose known to Little Turtle, and added, "We have long been
friends; we are friends yet, until the sun stands so high [indicating
the place] in the heavens; from that time we are enemies and may kill
one another." Be this as it may, he came to Wayne, was taken into high
favor, and made chief of scouts, and served loyally and with signal
success until the end of the campaign. After the campaign he was joined
by his Indian wife and his children; the latter grew up and married well
in the community, so that their blood now flows in the veins of many of
the descendants of the old pioneers. Wells himself was slain by the
Indians long afterwards, in 1812, at the Chicago massacre.

Surprise of an Indian Party.

One of Wells' fellow spies was William Miller. Miller, like Wells, had
been captured by the Indians when a boy, together with his brother
Christopher. When he grew to manhood he longed to rejoin his own people,
and finally did so, but he could not persuade his brother to come with
him, for Christopher had become an Indian at heart. In June, 1794,
Wells, Miller, and a third spy, Robert McClellan, were sent out by Wayne
with special instructions to bring in a live Indian. McClellan, who a
number of years afterwards became a famous plainsman and Rocky Mountain
man, was remarkably swift of foot. Near the Glaize River they found
three Indians roasting venison by a fire, on a high open piece of
ground, clear of brushwood. By taking advantage of the cover yielded by
a fallen treetop the three scouts crawled within seventy yards of the
camp fire; and Wells and Miller agreed to fire at the two outermost
Indians, while McClellan, as soon as they had fired, was to dash in and
run down the third. As the rifles cracked the two doomed war