We had now been for some time assembled in considerable numbers. Much agitation and terror had prevailed among us, and now famine began to be felt. The faces of men wore an aspect of unusual gloominess, the active became indolent, and the spirits of the bravest seemed to be subdued. I started to hunt with my dogs, which I had constantly refused to kill, or suffer to be killed. By their assistance, I found and killed a bear. On returning home, I said to some of the Indians, “Has not the Great Spirit given us our dogs to aid us in procuring what is needful for the support of our life, and can you believe he wishes now to deprive us of their services? The prophet, we are told, has forbid us to suffer our fire to be extinguished in our lodges, and when we travel or hunt, he will not allow us to use a flint and steel, and we are told he requires that no man should give fire to another. Can it please the Great Spirit that we should lie in our hunting camps without fire, or is it more agreeable to him that we should make fire by rubbing together two sticks than with a flint and a piece of steel?” But they would not listen to me, and the serious enthusiasm which prevailed among them so far affected me that I threw away my flint and steel, laid aside my medicine bag, and, in many particulars, complied with the new doctrines. But I would not kill my dogs. I soon learned to kindle a fire by rubbing some dry cedar, which I was careful to carry always about me, but the discontinuance of the use of flint and steel subjected many of the Indians to much inconvenience and suffering. The influence of the Shawnee prophet was very sensibly and painfully felt by the remotest Ojibbeways of whom I had any knowledge, but it was not the common impression among them that his doctrines had any tendency to unite them in the accomplishment of any human purpose. For two or three years drunkenness was much less frequent than formerly, war was less thought of, and the entire aspect of affairs among them was somewhat changed by the influence of one man. But gradually the impression was obliterated, medicine bags, flints, and steels, were resumed, dogs were raised, women and children were beaten as before, and the Shawnee prophet was despised. At this day he is looked upon by the Indians as an imposter and a bad man.
After the excitement of this affair had somewhat subsided, and the messengers had left us to visit remoter bands, I went with a large party of Indians to some of the upper branches of Red River to hunt beaver. I know not whether it was that we were emboldened by the promise of the prophet, that we should be invisible to the Sioux, but we went much nearer than we had formerly ventured to their country. It was here, in a border region, where both they and ourselves had been afraid to hunt, that we now found beaver in the greatest abundance. Here, without the aid of my gun, I took one hundred large beavers in a single month, by trapping merely. My family was now ten in number, six of whom were orphan children, and although there was no one but myself to hunt or trap, I was able for some time to supply all their wants. At length, beaver began to grow scarce, and I was compelled to shoot an elk. My family had been so long unaccustomed to hear guns, that at the sound of mine they left the lodge and fled to the woods, believing the Sioux had fired upon me. I was compelled to carry my traps to a greater distance, and to visit them only in the middle of the day. My gun was constantly in my mind. If I had occasion to do any thing, I held my gun in one hand and labored with the other. I slept a little by day, but during the night, and every night, I watched around my lodge. Being again out of meat, I went to the woods to hunt moose, and in one day killed four. I butchered and cut them open without laying down my gun. As I was cleaning the last, I heard a gun not more than two hundred yards from me. I knew that I had advanced nearer to the frontier of the Sioux than any Ojibbeway, and I did not believe there were any of the latter tribe living near me. I therefore believed this must be the gun of a Sioux, and immediately called out to him, as I supposed he must have heard my firing, but no answer was returned. I watched about me more anxiously than before, and at the approach of night stole toward home as silently and as cautiously as I could. On the following day, I ventured to examine in the direction of the place where I had heard the gun, and found the tracks which proved to be those of an Ojibbeway, who had fired upon a bear which he was pursuing, probably with too much eagerness to hear me call. Soon after this, I found many tracks, and ascertained that I was not far distant from a place where the Ojibbeways had built and fortified a camp. Three times I received messages from the chiefs of the band living in this camp, stating that my situation was too exposed and dangerous, and urging me to come in. I disliked to live in a crowded place, and it was not until I discovered the tracks of some Sioux that had been reconnoitering my camp, that I determined to fly into this work. The night before my departure was one, at my lodge, of terror and alarm, greater even than is commonly felt among the Indians. I had mentioned the tracks that I had seen, and I did not doubt that a party of the Sioux were in my immediate neighbourhood, and would fall upon me before morning. More than half the night had passed, and not one of us had slept, when we heard a sudden rushing without, and our dogs came running in in evident alarm. I told my children that the time was come for us all to die together. I placed myself in the front part of my lodge, and raising the door a little, put out the muzzle of my gun, and sat in momentary expectation of the approach of the enemy. Footsteps were distinctly audible, but the night being dark, I could as yet see nothing. At length a little black object, not larger in appearance than a man’s head, came slowly and directly towards my lodge. Here again I experienced how much fear influences the power of sight, for this little object, as it came near, seemed at one instant to shoot up to the height of a man, and at the next, to be no larger than it really was. When I was entirely convinced that it was nothing but a small animal, I stepped out, and finding it to be a porcupine, killed it with a tomahawk. The remainder of the night was spent in the same manner as the beginning. Early next morning, I fled to the fortified camp. On my arrival, the chiefs councilled, and sent two young men to look after the property left in my lodge, but as I knew the Sioux were lurking in that direction, and that should the young men be killed, or injured, their friends would consider me the cause of their misfortune, I went before them, but by a circuitous route, determining that if any thing happened, I would be present and have a part in it. I found my lodge safe, and we experienced no molestation in removing my baggage to the fort.