The “chiente’” or shanty of le Bourdon stood quite near to the banks of the Kalamazoo, and in a most beautiful grove of the burr-oak.  Ben had selected the site with much taste, though the proximity of a spring of delicious water had probably its full share in influencing his decision.  It was necessary, moreover, that he should be near the river, as his great movements were all made by water, for the convenience of transporting his tools, furniture, etc., as well as his honey.  A famous bark canoe lay in a little bay, out of the current of the stream, securely moored, head and stern, in order to prevent her beating against any object harder than herself.

The dwelling had been constructed with some attention to security.  This was rendered necessary, in some measure, as Ben had found by experience, on account of two classes of enemies—­men and bears.  From the first, it is true, the bee-hunter had hitherto apprehended but little.  There were few human beings in that region.  The northern portions of the noble peninsula of Michigan are some-what low and swampy, or are too broken and savage to tempt the native hunters from the openings and prairies that then lay, in such rich profusion, further south and west.  With the exception of the shores, or coasts, it was seldom that the northern half of the peninsula felt the footstep of man.  With the southern half, however, it was very different; the “openings,” and glades, and watercourses, offering almost as many temptations to the savage as they have since done to the civilized man.  Nevertheless, the bison, or the buffalo, as the animal is erroneously, but very generally, termed throughout the country, was not often found in the vast herds of which we read, until one reached the great prairies west of the Mississippi.  There it was that the red men most loved to congregate; though always bearing, in numbers, but a trifling proportion to the surface they occupied.  In that day, however, near as to the date, but distant as to the events, the Chippewas, Ottawas, Pottawattamies, kindred tribes, we believe, had still a footing in Michigan proper, and were to be found in considerable numbers in what was called the St. Joseph’s country, or along the banks of the stream of that name; a region that almost merits the lofty appellation of the garden of America.  Le Bourdon knew many of their warriors, and was much esteemed among them; though he had never met with either of those whom chance now had thrown in his way.  In general, he suffered little wrong from the red men, who wondered at his occupation, while they liked his character; but he had sustained losses, and even ill-treatment, from certain outcasts of the tribes, as well as from vagrant whites, who occasionally found their way to his temporary dwellings.  On the present occasion, le Bourdon felt far more uneasiness from the circumstance of having his abode known to Gershom Waring, a countryman and fellow-Christian, in one sense at least, than from its being known to the Chippewa and the Pottawattamie.