It may have been that a calm summer's night had nearly passed away. The first faint glimmering of light in the east heralds the approach of morn. The village of the Mush-quah-tas is still wrapt in slumber. The sleeping mother gently clasps her baby to her breast, unconscious of approaching danger. The maiden dreams of her lover; the young man of glorious feats of the chase or of war. The old brave lives over again the experiences of the youth or dreams of the happy hunting ground to which he is hastening. Dark forms, crouching in the shadows, are stealthily approaching, on this side a long line of Ottawa braves, on that their friends and allies, the Chippewas. The lines close round the doomed village. Some of the crouching figures are already at the very doors. So noiseless and stealthy has been the approach that not even the watchful dogs have been alarmed. Suddenly there bursts upon the night air a sound to make the blood curdle, a deafening chorus of demoniac yells, as if uttered in concert by a legion of frantic furies. Full well the startled Mush-quah-tas know the fearful import of that sound, the warwhoop of their enemies. Full well they know there is no avoiding the death struggle. The old brave reaches for his war club, and the young man strings his bow, but their assailants are quick and powerful, and the stone hatchets are wielded with terrible effect. Crushed and mangled they go down, slain but not conquered. The maiden covers her face with her garment and quietly bows her head to the fatal blow. The mother loosens her clasp of her frightened infant, seizes the nearest weapon, and, with the fierceness of a tigress at bay, springs upon her foes. Her blows tell, but fierceness cannot long avail against strength and numbers. She falls mortally wounded. Her dying eyes are turned lovingly upon her child. A brawny warrior seizes it by the feet, whirls it high in air, dashes it with crushing force upon the earth, and flings its bleeding and lifeless body upon its mother's bosom. The surprised Mush-quah-tas, taken at a disadvantage, make a brave fight, but victory does not long waver in the balance. As the sun rises upon the scene, all the inmates save one of that doomed village lie stark and bloody on the ground, or are being consumed in the rapidly-burning wigwams. The revenge of the insulted Ottawas is complete.

This battle, says the Ottawa tradition, was one of the most terrible ever fought in this region. Only a young man escaped, who carried the news of the disaster to the three families at Little Traverse bay. Some of the Mush-quah-tas living in the small outlying villages escaped. The remnant of the tribe removed toward the south and established themselves near the St. Joseph river, where for a time they enjoyed a degree of prosperity. But they were not safe. After intercourse had been

opened between the French and the Ottawas, and the latter had been supplied with guns and axes by the French traders, it occurred to them that these implements would be effective in battle. Anxious to put them to the test, they resolved to try their effectiveness on their old enemies, the Mush-quah-tas, who as yet were unacquainted with firearms. Accordingly, an expedition was fitted out, destined for the St. Joseph. As the Ottawas approached the village of their enemies, each man carrying a gun, the Mush-quah-tas mistook the weapons for clubs, and came out with their bows and arrows, anticipating an easy victory. But they were soon undeceived, and suffered a second crushing defeat, from the effects of which they never recovered. The tribal organization was dissolved, and the few Mush-quah-tas remaining alive were scattered among the neighboring tribes.

After the destruction of the principal village of the Mush-quah-tas and the removal of the remnant of the tribe to the St. Joseph, the Ottawas gradually extended their settlements toward the south, along the shore of Lake Michigan.

In the forest were plenty of beaver, marten, and otter, but not many At the approach of winter, they generally went south to hunt, returning in the spring. The fish in the lakes, during the proper season, furnished an abundant supply of food. They were caught in gill nets made of twine manufactured from the inner bark of the slippery elm (Ulmus fulva). The manufacture of the twine was a part of the work of the women. The bark was macerated in the lye of wood ashes, to remove the mucilage, beaten to separate the fibers, and spun by hand. It was the work of the women, also, to dress the game, cure the skins, cultivate their limited corn-fields, pound the corn in wooden mortars and prepare the hominy, gather the fuel, and perform the general drudgery of the household. The men, when not engaged in fishing or the chase, or in forays into the homes of distant tribes (for all distant tribes were considered lawful plunder), reclined in listless idleness in the shelter of their bark wigwams, or engaged in the athletic sports common among the Al gonquin people.

We see in the Ottawas what may be called a fair average example of Indian character. In common with others, they were brave, suspicious, treacherous, generous as friends and cruel and implacable as enemies. Marquette says that they were addicted beyond all other tribes to foulness, incantations, and sacrifices to evil spirits, but the estimates of Indian character of all the early Jesuit missionaries should be taken with many grains of allowance.

As a tribe the Ottawas were never strong in numbers. Their own tradition says they were more numerous at the time of Pontiac's war than ever before, and that that period was the most glorious of their existence; yet historical records seem to show that they could not bring more than a few hundred warriors into the field.

CHAPTER III.

Jesuit Missionaries-Principal Missions-Point St. Ignace-Father Marquette-First White Men in the Grand Traverse Country-L'Arbre Croche-Schemes of Pontiac-Massacre at Mackinac-Father JonoisThe English Prisoners Carried to L'Arbre Croche-The Release.

When, about the year 1650, the Huron settlements at the southeastern extremity of the Georgian bay of Lake Huron were broken up by the victorious Iroquois, and the people scattered in various directions, a remnant, known as the Tobacco nation, migrated towards the northwest and fixed their abode on the Island of Mackinac. There they were joined by a band of Ottawas from the Isle des Allumettes of the Ottawa river, the ancient home of the Ottawa nation, and, it is said, by some Ottawas and other Algonquins from the western shore of Lake Huron. After remaining several years at Mackinac, and finding themselves still harassed by their enemies, they moved again westward, and took possession of the islands at the entrance of Green bay. From thence they migrated southward and westward, coming in contact with the Illinois, and afterward, on the banks of the Mississippi, with the Sioux. Quarreling with the Sioux and being driven from their country, they retreated to Point St. Esprit, near the Islands of the Twelve Apostles, in the southwestern part of Lake Superior.

The Jesuit missionaries, who had done some of their most successful work among the Hurons, followed the flying remnants of their flock into the depths of the northwestern wilderness. Two principal missions were established, one named St. Esprit, at the point of that name, on Lake Superior, the other at Sault Ste. Marie. About 1760 a third mission was founded at Green Bay.

The mission at St. Esprit was of short duration. About 1671 the Sioux commenced open hostilities upon the Hurons and Ottawas and so terrified them that they abandoned their settlement and fled. Marquette, who was in charge of the mission, followed his panic-stricken flock. They coasted Lake Superior, passed the mission at the Sault, and descended

the St. Mary's river. The Hurons stopped in the vicinity of Mackinac, fixing their abode on Point St. Ignace. The Ottawas continued on to the Great Manitoulin island. The Hurons were afterwards joined at St. Ignace by bands of Ottawas from those occupying the country in the vicinity of the Straits. A new mission was now established at St. Ignace, and placed in charge of Marquette.

The missions were centers from which radiated influences that, in a wonderful degree, affected the lives and fortunes of the Indians. Each was in reality a sort of triple establishment, consisting of the mission proper, under the control and management of the zealous, determined, and wily Jesuits, a military post, kept by an officer and a few French soldiers, and a straggling village, inhabited by a motley company-trad-. ers, adventurers, and voyageurs-Frenchmen, Indians, and half-breeds. Unlike the English the French colonists readily adapted themselves to the manners and customs of the Indians. A few Frenchmen brought their wives to the western wilderness, but no disgrace attached to the marrying of an Indian woman, and in many localities families of mixed blood became the rule, rather than, as in the English border settlements, the exception to the rule.

The salvation of souls, the aggrandizement of the Society of Jesus, and the glory of France were the objects aimed at by the leading spirits of the mission, to which the greed of gain, manifested in much sharp practice in trade, was scarcely subordinated. So cleverly was the intercourse with the Indians planned and executed, through a long series of years, that the northwestern tribes became the firm friends and allies of France. During the war between France and England, ending with the surrender of Canada to the English in 1760, commonly called in this country the French and Indian war, though living far distant from the principal theater of action, they rendered valuable service to the French. It is said that even on the farthest shores of Lake Superior, the wigwams of Indian braves were garnished with English scalps.

The Grand Traverse country came properly within the territory over which the mission at St. Ignace essayed to establish politico-ecclesiastical control. For two years after the establishment of the mission, Marquette was its animating spirit. Popular belief credits him with having preached the gospel to the Ottawas along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, but it is not sustained by the record. There is no evidence that he ever visited the beautiful wilderness country bordering on Grand Traverse and Little Traverse bays, or that he even coasted along the shore. It is probable that his arduous duties at the mission

left no time for extended journeys, and that he found ample opportunity for the fullest exercise of his persuasive powers on the residents and visitors of St. Ignace.

With Marquette it had long been a cherished project to visit the great river of the west, the Mississippi, wonderful accounts of which he had received, while at St. Esprit, from the Illinois and the Sioux, who visited him there. When, after two years' residence at St. Ignace, he was permitted to set out on his tour of discovery, in company with Joliet, he passed westward to Green Bay, and then to the Mississippi by way of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers. Returning, he passed up the Illinois and Des Plaines rivers, crossed the portage to the Chicago, and from the mouth of that stream coasted along the western shore of the lake to Green Bay. After spending the winter and summer there, he set out on a visit to the Illinois, taking the route of the western shore of the lake and the portage to the Des Plaines. On his return, in the spring of 1675, he started to coast for the first time along the eastern shore of the lake. A disease from which he had long been a sufferer assumed increased violence, and it soon became evident that he could not long survive. At the mouth of a little river, supposed to be somewhere north of the stream that bears his name, he peacefully passed away, and was buried by his faithful attendants, Pierre and Jacques, who then pursued their lonely journey to St. Ignace. A year afterwards a party of Ottawas returning from their annual winter hunt opened the grave, washed and dried the bones, enclosed them in a box of birch bark, and carried them to St. Ignace, where they were received with solemn ceremony, and buried beneath the floor of the little chapel of the mission.

It is possible that some devoted and adventurous missionary, burning with a desire to promote the spiritual welfare of the Ottawas of the Grand Traverse country, had visited them in their own villages, or that some trader, bent on schemes of profit, had coasted along its western border or even penetrated the interior previous to the death of Marquette, but, if so, there is no record of it. As far as we know, Pierre and Jacques, lonely and sorrowful, returning in their canoe to St. Ignace, were the first white men to look upon the placid waters of the two beautiful bays, one of which gives its name to the country. The next was La Salle's lieutenant, Henri de Tonty, who, with a party of men, passed southward along the shore, late in the autumn of 1679, and, after great hardship and suffering, joined his commander at St. Joseph.

Since the death of Marquette, nearly a century had rolled away, when the stirring events of Pontiac's war furnished material for an interest