After her darling short-snouted babies were about a month old, she
took them out to the woods and gradually roamed farther and farther
from the shanty in search of acorns and roots. One afternoon we heard
a rifle-shot, a very noticeable thing, as we had no near neighbors, as
yet. We thought it must have been fired by an Indian on the trail that
followed the right bank of the Fox River between Portage and
Packwaukee Lake and passed our shanty at a distance of about three
quarters of a mile. Just a few minutes after that shot was heard,
along came the poor mother rushing up to the shanty for protection,
with her pigs, all out of breath and terror-stricken. One of them was
missing, and we supposed of course that an Indian had shot it for
food. Next day, I discovered a blood-puddle where the Indian trail
crossed the outlet of our lake. One of father's hired men told us that
the Indians thought nothing of levying this sort of blackmail whenever
they were hungry. The solemn awe and fear in the eyes of that old
mother and those little pigs I never can forget; it was as
unmistakable and deadly a fear as I ever saw expressed by any human
eye, and corroborates in no uncertain way the oneness of all of us.
Pages:
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94