A gloomy frown came over the sachem's brow, and he remained silent.
The judge knew that all their lives depended upon a right action at once; and following his daughter, who was retreating with her child into the woods, he said to her, "Stay, stay, my daughter; bring back the child, I beg of you! I would not risk a hair of his head, for he is as dear to me as to you,—but, my child, he must remain with the chief! God will watch over him, and he will be as safe in the sachem's wigwam as in your arms beneath your own roof." She yielded, and her darling boy was left; but who can tell the agony of the mother's heart during the following days?
Every night she awoke from her sleep, seeming to hear the screams of her child calling upon its mother for help. How slowly and heavily passed the hours away. But at last the third day came. The morning waned away, and the afternoon was far advanced, yet the chief came not. There was sorrow over the whole home, and the mother, pale and silent, walked her room in despair. The judge, filled with anxious doubts and fears, looked through the opening in the forest towards the sachem's abode.
At last, as the rays of the setting sun were thrown upon the tops of the tall trees around, the eagle feathers of the chief were seen dancing above the bushes in the distance. He came rapidly, and the little boy was at his side. He was gayly attired as a young chief: his feet dressed in moccasins, a fine beaver-skin thrown over his shoulders, and eagle's feathers stuck in his hair. He was laughing and gay, and so proud of his honors that he seemed two inches taller than before. He was soon clasped in his mother's arms, and in that brief moment of joy she seemed to pass from death to life.
"The white man has conquered!" said the chief; "hereafter let us be friends. You have trusted the Indian; he will repay you with confidence and kindness."
And he was true to his word. Judge W—— lived many years, laying there the foundation of that flourishing community which has spread over a wide extent of western New York.
The Far West, in my childhood, meant the "Genesee country," as far as the falls of Niagara.
[ BIG THUNDER—A WINNEBAGO CHIEF. ]
The Winnebago Indians migrated from Belvidere, Illinois, on the Kish-wau-kie River, to Minnesota, and thence to the Omaha reservation, in Nebraska. At Belvidere, there is a mound on which Big Thunder when he died was set up, his body supported by posts driven in the ground. This was done at his dying request, and in accord with his prophecy to his tribe: "That there was to be a great and terrible fight between the white and red men. And when the red men were about to be beaten in the battle, he would come to life again, and rising up with a shout, would lead his people to victory!" His tribe would visit the spot once a year, where his body was drying away, and leave tobacco as an offering; and the white young men would surely go there soon after and stow the plugs away in their capacious pockets. As the town became settled, visitors would carry off the bones as mementos of the old chief. After they were all gone, some wags would place the bones of some dead sheep for relic-hunters to pick up and carry home as the bones of a noble chief.
I have seen the stakes, which was all that remained of "Big Thunder" after he was dried up and blown away.