Читать книгу A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner. U.S. Interpreter at the Saut de Ste. Marie онлайн

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When we came to the Saut of St. Marie, we put all our baggage on board the trader’s vessel, which was about to sail to the upper end of Lake Superior, and went on ourselves in our canoes. The winds were light, which enabled us to run faster than the vessel, and we arrived ten days before it at the Portage. When she at last came and anchored out at a little distance from the shore, my father and his two sons Wa-me-gon-a-biew, (he who puts on feathers,) the eldest, and Ke-wa-tin, (the north wind,) went out in a canoe to get the baggage. In jumping down into the hold of the vessel, the younger of these young men fell with his knee upon a knot of the rope tied around a bundle of goods, and received an injury from which he never recovered. The same night his knee was badly swollen, and on the next day he was not able to go out of the lodge. After about eight or ten days, we commenced crossing the Grand Portage: we carried him on our shoulders by fastening a blanket to two poles; but he was so sick that we had to stop often, which made us long in passing. We left our canoes at the trading-house, and when we came to the other side of the Portage, were detained some days to make small canoes. When these were nearly finished, my father sent me, with one of his wives, back to the trading-house to bring something which had been forgotten. On our return, we met the two boys at some distance, coming to tell me to hasten home, for my father was dying, and he wished to see me before he died. When I came into the lodge, I found that he was indeed dying, and though he could see, he was not able to speak to me. In a few minutes he ceased to breathe. Beside him lay the gun which he had taken in his hand a few minutes before to shoot the young man who had wounded him at Mackinac. In the morning, when I left him to go to the Portage, he was apparently well; my mother told me it was not until afternoon he began to complain; he then came into the lodge, saying, “I am now dying; but since I have to go, this young man, who has killed me, must go with me. I hoped to have lived till I had raised you all to be men; but now I must die, and leave you poor, and without any one to provide for you.” So saying, he stepped out, with the gun in his hand, to shoot the young man, who was at that time sitting by the door of his own lodge. Ke-wa-tin, hearing this, began to cry, and, addressing his father, said, “My father, if I was well I could help you to kill this man, and could protect my young brothers from the vengeance of his friends after he is dead; but you see my situation, and that I am about to die. My brothers are young and weak, and we shall all be murdered if you kill this man.” My father replied, “My son, I love you too well to refuse you any thing you request.” So saying, he returned, laid down his gun, and, after having said a very few words, inquired for me, and directed them to send for me, he expired. The old woman procured a coffin from the traders, and they brought my father’s body in a wagon to the trading-house on this side the Grand Portage, where they buried him in the burying ground of the whites. His two sons, as well as the young man who killed him, accompanied his body to the Portage. This last was near being killed by one of my brothers; but the other prevented him, as he was about to strike.