[Footnote 87:  Eight years afterwards, namely, in July, 1846, this lawless vagabond waylaid and shot my brother James, having concealed himself in a cedar thicket.]

Tanner was stolen by old Kishkako, the Saginaw, from Kentucky, when he was a boy of about nine years old.  He is now a gray-headed, hard-featured old man, whose feelings are at war with every one on earth, white and red.  Every attempt to meliorate his manners and Indian notions, has failed.  He has invariably misapprehended them, and is more suspicious, revengeful, and bad tempered than any Indian I ever knew.  Dr. James, who made, by the way, a mere pack-horse of Indian opinions of him, did not suspect his fidelity, and put many things in his narrative which made the whites about St. Mary’s call him an old liar.  This enraged him against the Doctor, whom he threatened to kill.  He had served me awhile as an interpreter, and, while thus employed, he went to Detroit, and was pleased with a country girl, who was a chambermaid at old Ben.  Woodworth’s hotel.  He married her, but, after having one child, and living with him a year, she was glad to escape with life, and, under the plea of a visit, made some arrangement with the ladies of Fort Brady to slip off, on board of a vessel, and so eluded him.  The Legislature afterwards granted her a divorce.  He blamed me for the escape, though I was entirely ignorant of its execution, and knew nothing of it, till it had transpired.

In this trip to the North, I called on the Indians to show me their old fields and gardens at every point.

It was found that there were eight geographical bands, consisting of separate villages, living on the ceded tract.  The whole population of these did not exceed, by a close count, 569 souls.  The population had evidently deteriorated from the days of the French and British rule, when game was abundant.  This was the tradition they gave, and was proved by the comparatively large old fields, not now in cultivation, particularly at Portagunisee, at various points on the Straits of St. Mary’s, and at Grand Island and its coasts on Lake Superior.

They cultivate chiefly, the potato, and retire in the spring to certain points, where the Acer saccharinum abounds, and all rely on the quantity of maple sugar made.  This is eaten by all, and appears to have a fattening effect, particularly on the children.  The season of sugar-making is indeed a sort of carnival, at which there is general joy and hilarity.  The whole number of acres found in cultivation by individuals, was 125-1/2 acres; and by bands, and in common, 100-3/4 acres, which would give an average of a little over 1/3 of an acre per soul.  Even this is thought high.  There were 1459 acres of old fields, partly run up in brush.  There were also 3162 acres of abandoned village sites, where not a soul lived.  I counted 27 dwellings which had a fixity, and nineteen apple trees in the forest.  In proportion as they had little, they set a high value on it, and insisted on showing everything, and they gave me a good deal of information.  The whole sum appraised to individuals was $3,428 25; and to collective bands, $11,173 $11,173 50.