As soon as I heard the facts, and not knowing to what
lengths the spirit of retaliation might go, I requested of Colonel Brady
a few men, with a non-commissioned officer, and proceeded, taking my
interpreter along, to the spot. The portage road winds along about
three-fourths of a mile, near the rapids, and all the way, within the
full sound of the roaring water, when it opens on a green, which is the
ancient camping ground, at the head of the falls. A footpath leads still
higher, by clumps of bushes and copsewood, to the borders of a shallow
bay, where in a small opening I somewhat abruptly came to the body of
the murdered man. He was a Chippewa from the interior called
Soan-ga-ge-zhick, or the Strong Sky. He had been laid out, by his
relatives, and dressed in his best apparel, with a kind of cap of blue
cloth and a fillet round his head. His lodge, occupied by his widow and
three small children, stood near. On examination, he had been stabbed in
several places, deeply in both thighs. These wounds might not have
proved fatal; but there was a subsequent blow, with a small tomahawk,
upon his forehead, above the left eye.
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