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It was decided that it was best to conceal the death of La Salle until it could be communicated by his brother, Chevalier, to the court in France. In the meantime the impression was to be left that he was still superintending the affairs of the settlement at the bay of St. Louis. At a little distance from the log-cabin of the French there was quite a group of Indian wigwams.
This tribe is certainly far superior in civilization and comforts to all other tribes of Indians, the Shoshones not excepted. The Wakoe wigwams are well built, forming long streets, admirable for their cleanness and regularity.
But Kerr by this time was at least clear of the wigwams; if he could but reach that rock by the lake-side, and if the Frenchman had kept faith, he might get safely away. Boileau would surely never fail him.
Eight or ten birch bark canoes on the shore told us the whereabouts of the Indians, though no wigwams were visible, the bush being so thick; as we neared the shore, the people began to show themselves, men, women, and children starting up one after another from amid the dense foliage and gazing at us with curious eyes. There were about seventy people, though nearly half of them were away.
Neither did that suggestion bring relief; for the Indians had broken camp early in the morning and there was only a dirty patch of littered snow, where the wigwams had been. The alarm now became a panic. Hamilton, half-crazed and unable to believe his own senses, began wondering whether he had nightmare.
Instead of the wildness of the desert were nut trees, plums, cherries, mulberries and all manner of fruits; instead of scattered wigwams, orderly streets of huts; instead of filth, neatness and cleanliness; instead of drunken brawls and orgies, the voice of children at the village school, and the voice of morning and evening prayer. No longer were the Indians in these settlements wild hunters.
Here, too, were a number of the squaws who had come from the Mohawk and Cayuga villages in order to be nearer to the warriors. Wigwams had been erected all round in a circle, and before each of them were the fires with kettles slung upon a tripod of sticks in which the evening meal was being cooked.
John river, where the Indians from time immemorial had built their wigwams and tilled their cornfields and where their dead for many generations had been laid to rest in the little graveyard by the river side. The object of the commissioners was to arrange for the location of white settlers at Medoctec.
We had with us some trinkets, glass necklaces, bracelets, rings, gilt lockets, knives, scissors, and other trifles, to barter with them, or to win their good-will. After pulling some way, we reached a sandy cove surrounded with trees of good height, and a quantity of brushwood below them. We saw several wigwams among the trees, and two canoes hauled up on the beach.
We have already cleared some land, and every year we plant potatoes. We cannot do much more than this until we have some one to teach us. We have built also three log-houses like the white people. Some of us live in these houses in the winter time. Our land is about four miles in extent. At present it is our fishing season, so we are scattered about fishing, and live in wigwams as you see us now.
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