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Updated: June 17, 2025
The Puants stole stock from the common fields, they trampled down crops, and kidnaped children and even women, to be ransomed for so many horses each. The French tried to be friendly, and with presents and good words to induce the Puants to leave. But those Puants Oh, they were British Indians: nothing but whipping would take the impudence out of them.
The men reprimed their flintlocks, and crawled forward abreast. Gabriel was at the extreme right. When they were near enough he gave his signal, the nasal singing of the rattlesnake. The guns cracked all together, and every Cahokian sprung up to finish the work with knife and hatchet. Nine of the Puants fell dead, and the rest were gone before the smoke cleared.
Continuing his voyage, some time in September he reached the Baie des Puants, on the western lake board of Michigan, where he cast anchor.
"We will dress ourselves as Puants," said Gabriel, "and make a rush on the wedding party on the way to church, and carry off the bride." Le Maudit Pensonneau sprung up and danced with joy when he heard that. Nothing would please him better than to dress as a Puant and carry off a bride.
Oh, yes, Gabriel and his men were getting very close to the Puants. They dismounted, and tied their horses in a crabapple thicket and crept forward on foot. He halted them, and crawled alone toward the light to reconnoitre, careful not to crack a twig or make the least noise. The nearer he crawled the more his throat seemed to choke up and his ears to fill with buzzing sounds.
He provided for them handsomely, and gave presents to each of the young men who had helped to take his daughter from the Puants; and he was so ashamed of the son-in-law he had wanted, that he never could endure to hear the man's name mentioned afterward. Alexis and the tavern-keeper used when they were taking a social cup together to hug each other without a word.
Still ascending the river, he passed through the "little lake of the Malominis," the sides of which "are covered with a sort of oats, which grow in tufts, with a small stalk, and of which the savages reap plentiful crops," and at length arrived at the land carriage of Ouisconsinc, which "we finished in two days; that is, we left the river Puants, and transported our canoes and baggage to the river Ouisconsinc, which is not above three-quarters of a league distant, or thereabouts."
They had no quarrels among themselves which the priest could not settle, and after the British conquest their only enemies were those Puants, the Pottawattamie Indians, who took the English side, and paid no regard when peace was declared, but still tormented the French because there was no military power to check them. You see the common fields across the rigolé.
The real Puants had attacked the wedding procession before it was out of sight of Prairie du Pont, and had scattered it and carried off Celeste. He did not know what had become of anybody except himself, after she was taken. Gabriel gave his horse a cut which was like a kick to its rider.
The trail of the Puants descended to the Bottom again at the head of the Grand Marais. There was heavy timber here. The night shadow of trees and rocks covered them, and they began to move more cautiously, for all signs pointed to a camp. And sure enough, when they had passed an abutment of the ridge, far off through the woods they saw a fire.
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