Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/505

Rh 1806, and in 1828 he died at a great age. Curly Head, mentioned by Pike in 1806, and visited by Cass in 1820, after attending the treaty at Prairie du Chien in 1825, became sick while returning to his village, and died. Hole-in-the-Day was with him at this time, and soon after became a prominent chief. Two prominent traders, Ashmun and Ermatinger, lived with sisters of his wife, who was a daughter of Biaswah. Already in this article allusions have been made to his bold career. In the fifth volume of the Wisconsin Historical Collections, the Rev. Alfred Brunson, who had been the superintendent of a Methodist mission among the Sioux below Saint Paul, and afterwards U.S. agent for the Ojibways, gives the following reminiscences of this chief:—

"Some time in June of this year [1838], Miles Vineyard, sub-agent to the Chippewas on the Upper Mississippi, ascended the river to a point a short distance above Little Falls and summoned Hole-in-the-Day and his band to a council, and demanded the prisoner.

"In July, 1838, not knowing of this movement, I ascended the river, to the same point, with a view to establish a mission and school among those Indians. I found them in council, on an island. As is their custom, when a stranger arrives, all business was suspended till the newcomers were introduced. I had heard so much of Hole-in-the-Day that I was anxious to see him. The council was in a thicket on an island. The underbrush had been cut out and piled in the centre, and perhaps fifty braves seated on the ground in the circle. The agent and his attaches were seated in like manner under a tree on one side of the circle, by the side of whom I and my attendants were assigned the place of honor, and looking in vain for one of distinguished appearance, I inquired of my