In a letter he has thus described the incident:  “It were a band o’ cutthroat robbers an’ runnygades from the Ohio country—­Hurons, Algonks an’ Mingos an’ all kinds o’ cast off red rubbish with an old Algonk chief o’ the name o’ Splitnose.  They stuffed their hides with the meat till they was stiff as a foundered hoss.  They grabbed an’ chawed an’ bolted it like so many hogs an’ reached out fer more, which is the differ’nce betwixt an Injun an’ a white man.  The white man gen’ally knows ’nough to shove down the brakes on a side-hill.  The Injun ain’t got no brakes on his wheels.  Injuns is a good deal like white brats.  Let ’em find the sugar tub when their ma is to meetin’ an’ they won’t worry ’bout the bellyache till it comes.  Them Injuns filled themselves to the gullet an’ begun to lay back, all swelled up, an’ roll an’ grunt an’ go to sleep.  By an’ by they was only two that was up an’ pawin’ eround in the stew pot fer ‘nother bone, lookin’ kind o’ unsart’tn an’ jaw weary.  In a minute they wiped their hands on their ha’r an’ lay back fer rest.  They was drunk with the meat, as drunk as a Chinee a’ter a pipe o’ opium.  We white men stretched out with the rest on ’em till we see they was all in the land o’ nod.  Then we riz an’ set up a hussle.  Hones’ we could ‘a’ killed ’em with a hammer an’ done it delib’rit.  I started to pull the young Huron out o’ the bunch.  He jumped up very supple.  He wasn’t asleep.  He had knowed better than to swaller a yard o’ meat.

“Whar was the wimmen?  I knowed that a part o’ the band would be back in the bush with them ‘ere wimmen.  I’d seed suthin’ in the trail over by the drownded lands that looked kind o’ neevarious.  It were like the end o’ a wooden leg with an iron ring at the bottom an’ consid’able weight on it.  An Injun wouldn’t have a wooden leg, least ways not one with an iron ring at the butt.  My ol’ thinker had been chawin’ that cud all day an’ o’ a sudden it come to me that a white man were runnin’ the hull crew.  That’s how I had gained ground with the red scout I took him out in the aidge o’ the bush an’ sez I: 

“‘What’s yer name?’

“‘Buckeye,’ sez he.

“‘Who’s the white man that’s with ye?’

“‘Mike Harpe.’

“‘Are the white wimmin with him?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘How many Injuns?’

“Two.’

“‘What’s yer signal o’ victory?’

“‘The call o’ the moose.’

“‘Now, Buckeye, you come with us,’ I sez.

“I knowed that the white man were runnin’ the hull party an’ I itched to git holt o’ him.  Gol ding his pictur’!  He’d sent the Injuns on ahead fer to do his dirty work.  The Ohio country were full o’ robber whelps which I kind o’ mistrusted he were one on ’em who had raked up this ‘ere band o’ runnygades an’ gone off fer plunder.  We got holt o’ most o’ their guns very quiet, an’ I put John Irons an’ two o’ his boys an’ Peter Bones an’ his boy Isr’el an’