by requesting her to acquiesce in the wishes of the white man. She replied, that all {225} they said was, without doubt, true, and that agreeably to his request, she was willing to become his wife.

The agreement being thus concluded, the trader made presents, agreeably to the custom of the nation, and conducted his interesting prize to his house.

The succeeding spring the trader departed for the settlements, leaving her of course at his trading house.

The ensuing autumn she had the pleasure to see him return, having now conceived for him the most tender attachment. Upon his visit the following season, she presented him with a fine daughter, born during his absence, and whom she had nursed with the fondest attention. With the infant in her arms, she had daily seated herself on the bank of the river, and followed the downward course of the stream, with her eye, to gain the earliest notice of his approach. Thus time passed on. The second year the father greeted a son, and obtained his squaw's reluctant consent to take their daughter with him on his return voyage to the country of the white people. But no sooner had he commenced his voyage, and although she had another charge upon which to lavish her caresses, than her maternal fondness overpowered her, and she ran crying and screaming along the river side in pursuit of the boat, tearing out her long flowing hair, and appearing to be almost bereft of reason. On her return home she gave away every thing she possessed, cut off her hair, went into deep mourning, and remained inconsolable. She would often say that she well knew that her daughter would be better treated than she could be at home, but she could not avoid regarding her own situation to be the same as if the Wahconda had taken away her offspring for ever.

One day, in company with six other squaws, she was engaged in her agricultural labours, her infant boy being secured to his cradle-like board, which she {226} had carefully reclined against a tree at a short distance. They were discovered by a war-party of Sioux, who rushed towards them, with the expectation of gratifying their vengeance by securing all their scalps. An exclamation from her companions directed her attention to the common enemy, and in her fright she fled precipitately, but suddenly recollecting her child, she swiftly returned full in the face of the Sioux, snatched her child from the tree, and turned to save its life, more precious than her own. She was closely pursued by one of the enemy, when she arrived at a fence which separated her from the field of the trading house. A moment's hesitation here would have been fatal; and, exerting all her strength, she threw the child, with its board, as far as she could on the opposite side.

Four of the squaws were tomahawked, and the others escaped, of which number the mother was one, having succeeded in bearing off her child uninjured.

The trader, on his arrival at the settlements, learned that his white or civilized wife had died during his absence, and after a short interval devoted to the usual formalities of mourning, he united his destinies with another, and highly amiable lady. The second season his wife accompanied him on his annual voyage up the Missouri, to his trading house, the abode of his squaw.

Previously to his arrival, however, he dispatched a messenger to his dependents, at the trading-house, directing them to prevent his squaw from appearing in the presence of his wife. She was accordingly sent off to the village of her nation, a distance of sixty or seventy miles. But she could not long remain there, and soon returned with her little boy on her back, and accompanied by some of her friends, she encamped near her husband's residence. She sent her son to the trader, who treated him affectionately. On the succeeding day the trader sent for his squaw, and {227} after making her some presents, he directed her to accompany her friends who were then on their way to their hunting grounds.

She departed without a murmur, as it is not unusual with the Omawhaws to send off one of their wives, on some occasions, while they remain with the favourite one.

About two months afterwards the trader recalled her. Overjoyed with what she supposed to be her good fortune, she lost no time in presenting herself before the husband whom she tenderly loved. But great was her disappointment, when her husband demanded the surrender of the child, and renounced for the future any association with herself, directing her to return to her people, and to provide for her future wellbeing in any way she might choose.

Overpowered by her feelings, on this demand and repudiation, she ran from the house, and finding a periogue on the river shore, she paddled over to the opposite side and made her escape into the forest with her child. The night was cold, and attended with a fall of snow and hail. Reflecting upon her disconsolate condition, she resolved to return again in the morning, and with the feelings of a wife and mother to plead her cause before the arbiter of her fate, and endeavour to mitigate the cruel sentence.

Agreeably to this determination, she once more approached him, upon whom she believed she had claims paramount to those of any other individual. "Here is our child," said she: "I do not question your fondness for him, but he is still more dear to me. You say that you will keep him for yourself, and drive me far from you. But no, I will remain with him; I can find some hole or corner into which I may creep, in order to be near him and sometimes to see him. If you will not give me food, I will, nevertheless, remain until I starve before your eyes."

The trader then offered her a considerable present, desiring her at the same time to go, and leave the {228} child. But she said, "Is my child a dog, that I should sell him for merchandize? You cannot drive me away; you may beat me, it is true, and otherwise abuse me, but I will still remain. When you married me, you promised to use me kindly as long as I should be faithful to you; that I have been so, no one can deny. Ours was not a marriage contracted for a season, it was to terminate only with our lives. I was then a young girl, and might have been united to an Omawhaw chief; but I am now an old woman, having had two children, and what Omawhaw will regard me? Is not my right paramount to that of your other wife; she had heard of me before you possessed her. It is true her skin is whiter than mine, but her heart cannot be more pure towards you, nor her fidelity more rigid. Do not take the child from my breast, I cannot bear to hear it cry, and not be present to relieve it;7 permit me to retain it until the spring, when it will be able to eat, and then, if it must be so, take it from my sight, that I may part with it but once."

Seeing her thus inflexible, the trader informed her that she might remain there if she pleased, but that the child should be immediately sent down to the settlements.

The affectionate mother had thus far sustained herself during the interview with the firmness of conscious virtue, and successfully resisted the impulse of her feelings; but nature now yielded, the tears coursed rapidly over her cheeks, and clasping her hands, and bowing her head, she burst into an agony of grief, exclaiming, "Why did the Wahconda hate me so much, as to induce me to put my child again into your power?"

The feelings of the unhappy mother were, however, soon relieved. Mr. Dougherty communicated {229} the circumstances of the case to Major O'Fallon, who immediately and peremptorily ordered the restoration of the child to