I was further told that some of the Indian traders had expressed their determination to disregard the law, set up their tents at La Pointe, and sell spirits to the savages.  “If they do, knives will be drawn,” was the common saying at the Sault; and at the Fort, I learned that a requisition had arrived from La Pointe for twenty men to enforce the law and prevent disorder.  “We can not send half the number,” said the officer who commanded at the Fort, “we have but twelve men in all; the rest of the garrison have been ordered to the Mexican frontier, and it is necessary that somebody should remain to guard the public property.”  The call for troops has since been transferred to the garrison at Mackinaw, from which they will be sent.

I learned afterward from an intelligent lady of the half-caste at the Sault, that letters had arrived, from which it appeared that more than four thousand Indians were already assembled at La Pointe, and that their stock of provisions was exhausted.

“They expected,” said the lady, “to be paid off on the 15th of August, but the government has changed the time to nearly a month later.  This is unfortunate for the Indians, for now is the time of their harvest, the season for gathering wild rice in the marshes, and they must, in consequence, not only suffer with hunger now, but in the winter also.”

In a stroll which we made through the Indian village, situated close to the rapids, we fell in with a half-breed, a sensible-looking man, living in a log cabin, whose boys, the offspring of a squaw of the pure Indian race, were practicing with their bows and arrows.  “You do not go to La Pointe?” we asked.  “It is too far to go for a blanket,” was his answer—­he spoke tolerable English.  This man seemed to have inherited from the white side of his ancestry somewhat of the love of a constant habitation, for a genuine Indian has no particular dislike to a distant journey.  He takes his habitation with him, and is at home wherever there is game and fish, and poles with which to construct his lodge.  In a further conversation with the half-breed, he spoke of the Sault as a delightful abode, and expatiated on the pleasures of the place.

“It is the greatest place in the world for fun,” said he; “we dance all winter; our women are all good dancers; our little girls can dance single and double jigs as good as any body in the States.  That little girl there,” pointing to a long-haired girl at the door, “will dance as good as any body.”

The fusion of the two races in this neighborhood is remarkable; the mixed breed running by gradual shades into the aboriginal on the one hand, and into the white on the other; children with a tinge of the copper hue in the families of white men, and children scarcely less fair sometimes seen in the wigwams.  Some of the half-caste ladies at the Falls of St. Mary, who have been educated in the Atlantic states, are persons of graceful and dignified manners and agreeable conversation.