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Early Western Travels
[Vol. i

was fitting, and could not have avoided the blow though I saw it coming. I was now concealed under my matress, as all the young Indians were determined to murder me, was afterwards obliged to put on Indian shoes and cover myself with a blanket to look like a savage, and escape by fording the river into a field of Indian corn with St. Vincent, Godefroi, and the other Canadian. Pondiac asked Godefroi, who returned to the village to see what was going on, "what he had done with the English man." And being told, he said, "you have done well." Attawang came to see me, and made his two sons guard me. Two Kickapoo chiefs came to me, and spoke kindly, telling me that they had not been at war with the English for seven years. Two Miamis came likewise, and told me that I need not be afraid to go to their village. A Huron woman however abused me because the English had killed her son. Late at night I returned to Attawang's cabin, where I found my servant concealed under a blanket, the Indians having attempted to murder him; but they had been prevented by St. Vincent. There was an alarm in the night, a drunken Indian having been seen at the skirt of the wood. One of the Delaware nation, who happened to be with Pondiac's army, passing by the cabin where I lay, called out in broken English: "D—d son of a b—ch." All this while I saw none of my own Indians: I believe their situation was almost as perilous as my own. The following day (30th) the Miamis and Kickapoos set out on their return home, as provisions were growing scarce. An Indian called the little chief, told Godefroi that he would send his son with me, and made me a present of a volume of Shakespear's plays; a singular gift from a savage. He however begged a little gunpowder in return, a commodity to him much