Volume 1

CROOKED LEGS STABS HIS YOUNG WIFE.
I05
remarkably superstitious. I let the children sleep in the
fort whilst the men and women were drinking in their
tents. About midnight I heard one of them chopping the
gate with an ax, and bawling out to let him in, as he
wanted liquor.
him if
Desmarais took the ax from him, and told
he cut the gate again he might depend upon receiv-
These people are not accustomed to
ing a sound beating.
traders who have their houses stockaded ; it is only of late
years they have seen anything of the kind. Having been
accustomed from infancy to full liberty of going in and
out, day or night, and being naturally of a haughty, imperious
disposition, the fellows cannot bear to knock at a gate
that does not open at their command.
Sept. 2gth. The Indians continued drinking. About
ten o'clock I was informed that old Crooked Legs had
killed his young wife. I instantly sent Desmarais to
inquire into the business. He soon returned, and told me
she was not dead, but had received three dreadful stabs.
I went to see her ; she was stretched at full length in
Crow's tent, with her relations around her, bawling and
crying ; they were all blind drunk. The old man had
retired to his own tent, where he sat singing and saying he
was not afraid to die. We examined the wounds, and
found the worst one just under the shoulder-blade ; another
was through the arm, and the third where the knife had
glanced from the elbow and entered the side between two
ribs. At every motion of the lung the blood gushed out
of the first and last wounds. I really thought she had not
many minutes to live ; and, therefore, left her to the care
of her own people, who were sucking the blood out of
the
wounds. Having done this for some time, they applied
some roots and leaves ; she soon after fell asleep. The
cause of the quarrel was jealousy. She was a stout, strong
young woman, and he a poor infirm old man, very small
and lean. He had reproached her for infidelity, and even
threatened her with death if she continued to misbehave.
She was wicked and full of resentment against the old man,