off a Chippeway who was
killed in the battle, wound it around a stick until it assumed the
appearance of a curl, and tied them over his ears. Another child had a
string around his neck with a finger hanging to it as an ornament. The
infants, instead of being amused with toys or trinkets, are held up to
see the scalp of an enemy, and they learn to hate a Chippeway as soon as
to ask for food.

After the battle, the mother of a Sioux who was severely wounded found
her way to the fort. She entered the room weeping sadly. Becoming quite
exhausted, she seated herself on the floor, and said she wanted some
coffee and sugar for her sick son, some linen to bind up his wounds, a
candle to burn at night, and some whiskey _to make her cry_! Her son
recovered, and the mother, as she sat by and watched him, had the
satisfaction to see the scalps of the murdered Chippeways stretched on
poles all through the village, around which she, sixty years old, looked
forward with great joy to dance; though _this_ was a small gratification
compared with her recollection of having formerly cut to pieces the
bodies of sundry murdered Chippeway children.

A dreadful creature she was! How vividly her features rise before me.
Well do I remember her as she entered my room on a stormy day in
January. Her torn mocassins were a mocking protection to her nearly
frozen feet; her worn "okendo kenda" hardly covering a wrinkled neck
and arms seamed with the scars of many a self-inflicted wound; she tried
to make her tattered blanket meet across her chest, but the benumbed
fingers were powerless, and her step so feeble, from fatigue and want of
food, that she almost fell before the cheerful fire that seemed to
welcome her. The smile with which she tried to return my greeting added
hideously to the savage expression of her features, and her matted hair
was covered with flakes of the drifting snow that almost blinded her.

Food, a pipe, and a short nap before the fire, refreshed her
wonderfully. At first she would hardly deign an answer to our questions;
now she becomes quite talkative. Her small keen eye follows the children
as they play about the room; she tells of her children when they were
young, and played around her; when their father brought her venison
for food.

Where are they? The Chippeways (mark her as she compresses her lips, and
see the nervous trembling of her limbs) killed her husband and her
oldest son: consumption walked among her househol