knowing their prejudices, he took care not to shock them by his statements, which would only prove injurious to himself; while the less prudent chiefs fell victims to their frankness.

An extraordinary evidence of the confidence reposed in him by his tribe, was afforded a few years before Ietan's death. Some of the white traders came to the village of the Otoes, and, in order to bribe the chiefs to use their influence with the Indians to part with their furs on easy terms, presented them with a keg of whiskey. They therefore prepared for a debauch business upon which they usually enter with due calculation. The women, foreseeing what would follow, took care to put the knives and other weapons of the savages beyond their reach.

In the height of their revel, Ietan and his brother, Lodge Pole, fell into a dispute, which ended in a quarrel. They grappled, and Ietan was thrown to the ground. During the violent scuffle which ensued, Lodge Pole bit off his brother's nose. Both parties were too much intoxicated to notice what had happened, but the next day, when Ietan came to his senses, and discovered the mutilation, he seized his rifle, went straight to his brother's lodge, and shot him dead. Knowing that he had forfeited his life, he left the village and proceeded to Council Bluffs. He was well known by the officers, who sought in vain to comfort him. He cared little, indeed, for his brother's death, or his own exile; but he seemed to feel a peculiar degree of humiliation on account of the wound upon his nose. He was not a little relieved when the surgeon found means to patch it up, assuring him that the scar would be scarcely visible.

The chief had been absent but a few days, when a "crying deputation," as it is called, came from the tribe, beseeching Ietan to return. It consisted of the principal men of the tribe; they were loaded with presents of horses, cloths and furs; and as they came into the presence of their chief, they wept aloud, in token of their sorrow. Ietan promised to take the subject into consideration. This he did, and, after a few weeks, he returned. He was received with joy by the people; his crime was overlooked; and from that time he was the war-chief of the tribe.

He continued to be their leader for a number of years; his reputation, not only as a warrior, but as a man of great sagacity and wisdom, was greatly extended, and he was regarded as one of the great men of the day. His fame for wit was spread far and wide, and his society was much sought on account of his powers of amusement. The white people were accustomed

to call him the Indian Voltaire.

The death of this renowned chief was inglorious. During his absence, about the year 1834, one of his young wives, being smitten with affection for one of the youthful dandies of the tribe, forgot her duty and went to live with her new lover. When letan was about to return, the young Indian began to dread the wrath of the chief. Accordingly, being joined by five or six of his companions, he fled to the woods. Ietan returned, and learning what had happened, pursued the seducer and his party. They lay in ambush, and as the chief approached they rose and fired a volley upon him. Though desperately wounded, he sprung upon them like a tiger, and slew two of them

with his own hand. In the midst of the conflict, he received a ball in his breast, and fell shouting in triumph for the vengeance he had inflicted upon his enemy.

BLACK HAWK.

IN 1832 and 1833, the western frontier of the United States again experienced the ravages of an Indian war. The principal leader of the savages was Black Hawk, a chief of the united tribes of Sacs and Foxes, occupying the territory between the Illinois and Mississippi rivers. He had been concerned in marauding expeditions against the settlements at an early period, but his hostile temper was strongly excited by a treaty made with the Sacs and Foxes, in 1830, by which those tribes sold their lands to the United States, and agreed to remove to the west of the Mississippi. A chief named Keokuk was the principal Indian negotiator in this business, to which Black Hawk was not a party. When he learnt what had taken place, he testified the greatest indignation, and, finding a considerable number among the Indians who were dissatisfied with the treaty, he offered to place himself at their head and raise the standard of opposition to Keokuk. The quiet of the frontier was soon disturbed by irregular proceedings, but it appears that, in the first act of violence, the whites were the aggressors. The abundant facilities for a border feud may be understood from the history of the first irregular proceeding in this case. One of the Indians found a bee-hive in a hollow tree, and carried it to his wigwam. The hive was claimed by some of the whites, and given up;