Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/161

Rh fast falling flakes of snow, he bade them save their lives by flight and inform their people of his fate.

The old man then turned to his lodge, and he listened anxiously for the yell that would denote the discovery and death of "the little birds which he had let out to fly away." That expected yell came not, and the old man became satisfied that his two grandchildren were safe.

At the first dawn of morning, the O-dug-am-ees commenced the attack with loud and thrilling war whoops. The Ojibways defended themselves bravely, and as long as their ammunition lasted, they kept their numerous assailants at bay, and sent many of their more hardy warriors to the land of Spirits; but as soon as their powder gave out they ceased firing, the O-dug-am-ees rushed into their camp, and leaping over their barrier of logs and brush, the work of death and scalping commenced. The Ojibways died not without a desperate struggle, for even the grandmother of the family cut down an enemy with her axe before she received the death stroke. All perished but the old hunter, who, during the last brave struggle of his two sons, miraculously escaped through the dense ranks of his eager foes, entirely naked and covered with blood from numerous wounds.

He had not proceeded far before he met a small party of his friends, who had been informed of the desperate situation of his camp, by the two girls whom he had caused to escape during the previous night. At the head of this party, though almost dead with fatigue and loss of blood, the old man returned, and found his wigwam in ashes. The O-dug-am-ee wolves had already done their work and departed, and the bodies of his murdered kindred scalped, dismembered, cut and hashed into a hundred pieces, lay strewn about on the blood-stained snow.

At this horrid spectacle the Ojibway party, though feeble in numbers, recklessly followed the return trail of the per-