The Sîiprcmc Court of Wisconsin. The voyageurs employed were of the class originally from Quebec Province. They or their ancestors had come into the lake region in the employ of traders. They could live on a little corn and tallow, en riched with venison or bear-meat when obtainable, yet with simple and spare diet they were always happy and cheerful. They had fine voices and made the camps ring and woods echo with their songs, and would row for hours to the tune of a row-song. Their powers of endurance were great. They would row or paddle all day, and when " packing " must be done over a port age or trail, they would carry on their backs, suspended by a strap crossing their breast or forehead, large packs of furs or mer chandise, from one hundred to one hundred and thirty pounds in weight, for whole days. At night, after a frugal meal, they bandied merry jokes, or sang their songs around the camp-fire, or joined in the dance to the mu sic of some old violin. They were a lighthearted, improvident set, and always glad to be on an expedition suchas above described. In May, 1829, Judge Doty, Mr. Baird and Morgan L. Martin, Esq., one of the earlier lawyers admitted to the bar, and a man of notable memory in Wisconsin, traveled on horseback from Green Bay to Prairie du Chien, a seven days' journey in which not a white man was met. At night they tethered horses and rolled themselves in blankets by a camp-fire and slept the sweet sleep of the bivouac, on the rolling prairies, or in the solemn woods. It is recorded that the Judge found Prairie du Chien inundated, in 1826, by an unwont ed rise in the rivers, when he went there to hold court. The fort and houses on the low grounds, or dog-prairie (Prairie du Chien), were abandoned. The court was held on the bluffs in a large barn. The jury occu pied the haymows, and the Judge and Bar sat on the threshing floor. Amid such surroundings the proceedings were conduct ed with a dignity and solemnity worthy of
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Westminster Hall. The jury, on retiring to consider their verdict, were led into an other stable near by. One of the trials at which Judge Doty presided at Prairie du Chien was that of We-Kau and Chic-hon-sic. These two In dians, of the Winnebago tribe, with Red Bird, a young brave, had entered the cabin of Rijeste Gagnier, at McNair's Coulee, near Prairie du Chien. They were received with civility and asked if they desired food. They saicl, "Want fish and milk." As Mrs. Gagnier turned to procure the repast, she heard the click of Red Bird's rifle, who shot her husband dead at her feet. At the same instant Chic-hon-sic shot and killed an old man named Lipcap. Mrs. Gagnier, seeing the other Indian, We-Kau, lingering at the door, wrested from him his rifle, but her strength, superhuman for a moment, then failed. As she expressed it, she felt "like one in a dream trying to call, or to run, but unable to do either." She soon rallied, and with her eldest child ran away, carrying the rifle. The Indians then scalped her babe left in the house and departed. The babe, however, lived, grew to womanhood, and was the mother of a family, but was despoiled of the glory of her sex. Red Bird and his Winnebagoes who had committed this murder, and others of the band, some thirty-seven in number, then fled up the Wisconsin. The news of the murder spread through the settlements, as fears of an Indian outbreak had for some time disturbed the settlers. Governor Dodge, the brave executive of the Territory, advanced upon them from one direction and pursued them up the river. Major Whistler of the United States army, in command at Fort Howard, on Green Bay, sent a force up the Fox River. The Winnebagoes were closed in at the present site of Portage City, at the point where the Fox River and the Wisconsin flow so near each other that a short portage enables the voyageur to pro ceed by water from Lake Michigan into the
