I chanced one night to have left the city of Albany, in company with one of these heroic spirits. We occupied my father's chaise, an old fashioned piece of gentility now out of vogue, drawn by a prime horse, one which he always rode on parades. It was late before we got out of the precincts of the city, and up the hill, and night overtook us away in the pine woods, at Billy McKown's, a noted public-house seated half way between the city and Iosco, where it was customary in those days to halt; for besides that he was much respected, and one of the most sensible and influential men in the town, it was not thought right, whatever the traveller might require, that a horse should be driven eight miles without drawing breath, and having a pail of water. As I was but young, and less of a charioteer than my valiant companion, he held the whip and reins thus far; but after the wolf stories that poured in upon us at McKown's that evening, he would hold them no longer. Every man, he thought, was responsible to himself. He did not wish to be wolf's meat that night, so he hired a fleet horse from our host, and a whip and spurs, and set off with the speed of a Jehu, leaving me to make my way, in the heavy chaise, through the sandy plains, as best I could.
In truth we had just reached the most sombre part of the plain, where the trees were more thick, the sand deep and heavy, and not a house but one, within the four miles. To render it worse, this was the chief locality of wolf insolence, where he had even ventured to attack men. It was on this route too, that the schoolmaster had used his medical arts, which made it better known through the country as the supposed centre of their power. Nothing harmed me, however; the horse was fine, and I reached home not only uneaten, but unthreatened by a wolf's jaw.
But I must confine myself to the matter in hand. A large and fierce wolf sallied out of the plains one dark summer's night, and rushed into the midst of the village, snapping to the right and left as he went, and biting every animal that came in his way. Cows, swine, pigs, geese—every species, whether on four legs, or two legs, shared its malice alike. The animal seemed to have a perfect ubiquity—it was every where, and seemed to have spared nothing. It is not recollected that there was a single house, or barn-yard in the village, where something had not been bitten. If he had come on an errand of retribution, for the great and threatening wolf-parties which had gone out against his race, and all the occult arts of the schoolmaster in trying to decoy them at Barrett's hollow, he could not have dealt out his venomous snaps more indiscriminately.
It must have been about midnight, or soon after, that the fearful visitor came. Midnight, in a country village, finds almost every one in bed, but such was the uproar among the animal creation, made by this strange interloper, that out of bed they soon come. The cattle bellowed, the pigs squealed, the poultry cackled—there must be something amiss. Santa Claus himself must be playing his pranks. "A wolf!" was the cry—"a wolf is committing havoc." "It is mad!" came next on the voices of the night. "A mad wolf!—a mad wolf!" Nothing but a mad wolf could venture alone into the heart of the village, and do so much mischief. Out ran the people into the streets, men, women and all. Some caught up guns, some clubs, some pitchforks. If the tories and Indians, in the old French war, had broke into the settlement with fire and sword, there could not have been a greater tumult, and nothing but a mad wolf would have stood his ground. Where is he? which way did he run? who saw him? and a thousand like expressions followed. He had gone south, and south the mob pushed after him. He was away over on the street that leads up from the middle factory. It was a cloudy night, or the moon only came out fitfully, and threw light enough to discern objects dimly, as the clouds rolled before it. Indistinct murmurs came on the breeze, and at length the scream of a woman. The cause of it soon followed. The wolf had bitten Mrs. Sitz. Now Mrs. Sitz was a careful, tall, rigid-faced, wakeful housewife, from the dutchy of Hesse D'Armstadt, who had followed the fortunes of her husband, in trying his mechanical skill in the precincts of Iosco; but while her husband Frank laid fast asleep, under the influence of a hard day's labour, her ears were open to the coming alarm. It was not long before she heard a tumult in her goose pen. The rabid animal had bounded into the midst of them, which created as great an outcry as if Rome had a second time been invaded. Out she ran to their relief, not knowing the character of the disturber, but naturally thinking it was some thief of a neighbour, who wished to make provision for a coming Christmas. The animal gave her one snap and leapt the pen. "Mein hemel!" screamed she, "er hat mein gebissen!" Sure enough the wolf had bit her in the thigh.
The party in chase soon came up, and while some stopt to parley and sympathize with her, others pushed on after the animal—the spitzbug, as she spitefully called him. By this time the wolf had made a circuit of the southern part of the village, and scampered down the old factory road, by the mill dam, under the old dark bridge at the saw mill, and up the hill by the old public store; and thus turned his course back towards the north, into the thickest part of the village, where he had first entered. He had made a complete circuit. All was valour, boasting, and hot speed behind him, but the wolf had been too nimble for them. Unluckily for him, however, while the main group pushed behind, just as he was scampering up the old store hill, he was suddenly headed by a party coming down it. This party was led by old Colonel S., a revolutionary soldier, a field-officer of the county militia, and the superintendent of the extensive manufacturing establishment from which the village drew its prosperity. He was armed with a fusil of the olden time, well charged, and having been roused from his bed in a hurry, could not at the moment find his hat, and clapt on an old revolutionary cocked hat, which hung in the room. His appearance was most opportune; he halted on the brow of the hill; and as the wolf bounded on he levelled his piece at the passing fugitive, and fired. He had aimed at the shoulders; the fleetness of its speed, however, saved its vital parts, but the shot took effect in the animal's hind legs. They were both broken at a shot. This brought him down. The poor creature tried to drag himself on by his fore paws, but his pursuers were too close upon him, and they soon dispatched him with hatchets and clubs.
Thus fell the rabid wolf, to be long talked of by men and boys, and put down as a chief item in village traditions. But the effects of his visit did not end here. In due time, symptoms of madness seized the cattle and other animals, which had come within the reach of his teeth. Many of the finest milch cows were shot. Calves and swine, and even poultry went rabid; and as things of this kind are generally overdone, there was a perfect panic in the village on the subject, and numbers of valuable animals were doubtless shot, merely because they happened to show some restiveness at a very critical epoch.
But what, methinks the reader is ready to ask, became of Mrs. Sitz? Whether it was, that she had brought over some mystical arts from the Wild Huntsman of Bohemia, or had derived protection from the venom through the carefully administered medicines of Dr. Crouse, who duly attended the case, or some inherent influence of the stout hearted woman, or the audacity of the bite itself, had proved more than a match for the wolf, I cannot say; but certain it is, that while oxen and kine, swine and fatlings, fell under the virus and were shot, she recovered, and lived many years to scold her dozing husband Frank, who did not jump up immediately, and come to her rescue at the goose pen.
Indian Possessions.—The Ottoes own, at the latest accounts, a large tract of country on the Big Platte, west of the Missouri; they are a poor race of people, and receive a small annuity of $2,500. The Pawnees are a powerful body, and number about 6,500 persons, divided into bands under the names of Pawnee Loups, Grand Pawnees, Republican Pawnees, Pawnee Pics, &c.; they are wild and furtive in their habits, and receive provisions and goods. The Grand Nation is the Pottowattomies, or the "united bands of the Chippewas, Ottawas, and Pottowattomies." They own five millions of acres of prairie lands, along the Missouri river to the Little Sioux, number about 2,000, and receive $42,000 a year for their lands sold in Illinois and Michigan. They are a respectable body of Indians, are good farmers, and educate their children. The payment of the annuities is always a season of great hilarity and festivity.—N. O. Pic.
It is a characteristic of some of the Indian legends, that they convey a moral which seems clearly enough to denote, that a part of these legends were invented to convey instruction to the young folks who listen to them. The known absence of all harsh methods among the Indians, in bringing up their children, favours this idea. The following tale addresses itself plainly to girls; to whom it teaches the danger of what we denominate coquetry. It would seem from this, that beauty, and its concomitant, a passion for dress, among the red daughters of Adam and Eve, has the same tendency to create pride, and nourish self-conceit, and self-esteem, and assume a tyranny over the human heart, which writers tell us, these qualities have among their white-skinned, auburn-haired, and blue-eyed progeny the world over. This tale has appeared in the "Columbian." The term Moowis is one of the most derogative and offensive possible. It is derived from the Odjibwa substantive, mo, filth, or excrement.