Minnemung
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. [A Strange Guest] 7 II. [Was It a Trick?] 25 III. [An Exchange at the Salt Lick] 42 IV. [Winter with the Potawatomis] 57 V. [The Long Knives] 74 VI. [On to Kaskaskia] 94 VII. [No Adoption] 108 VIII. [A Peaceful Interval] 120 IX. [Through the Drowned Lands] 137 X. [Capture of Vincennes] 155
Chapter I
A STRANGE GUEST
Thirteen-year-old Jim Hudson thumped a melon with practiced fingers, then pulled it from the vine and laid it in a pile with the others. He wiped his hot forehead with his sweaty shirtsleeve, turning with a smile toward his mother. “Look, Ma!” he called, “See how many melons we have. And how fine the turnips and corn look.”
Ma Hudson, her rifle across her knees, was sitting on a large stump in the little clearing. She turned at the sound of Jim’s voice, and smiled wearily at her towheaded boy. “Yes, Jim. We’ll have plenty to eat this winter, I’m thinking.”
Jim moved on to another vine and glanced along the row to where his father was kneeling. Ma pushed her sunbonnet back over her faded yellow hair and resumed her watch into the wilderness surrounding the clearing.