Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/365

Rh in triumph, and yelling his war-whoop till he reached a secure shelter behind a tree. So struck were the enemy by this sudden and daring act of valor, that they fired not a shot at the brave warrior till he had reached a place of safety.

The Ojibways were so exasperated at the loss of their young chief, that they fought with unusual fierceness and hardihood, and pursued the Dakotas some distance as they retreated, notwithstanding they were many times outnumbered by them. An Ojibway hunter named Ta-bush-aw, whose wigwam stood some distance from the main camp of Ais-sance, arrived too late on the field to join the fight, but determined to have his share of the sport, and withal a scolding wife causing life to be a burden to him, he followed up the retreating war party on horseback, at night, accompanied by another hunter, named Be-na. They headed the Dakotas, and lying in ambush on their route, they fired into their ranks. Be-na, pursuant to the request of his fellow hunter, immediately retreated, while Ta-bush-aw kept up the fight with the whole Dakota war party, till he fell a victim to his bravery.

Instances are not rare, where warriors have sacrificed their lives in this manner, either for the sake of being mentioned in the lodge tales of their people as brave men, to wipe off the slur of cowardice, which for some cause, some one of their fellow warriors might have cast on them, or more often, through being tired of the incessant scoldings of a virago wife, and other burdens of life equally unendurable, as was the case with Ta-bush-aw.

At this time, the Ojibways occupying the sources of the Mississippi and Red River, had forced the Dakotas to retreat west of these two streams. Hunters from Lake Superior, and even from the Ottoways of Mackinaw, had found their way to the Red River of the North, to trap beaver, and chase the buffalo, which abounded in these