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Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest by Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
page 23 of 425 (05%)
Detroit, alone is left, a witness of the zeal and self-sacrifice of
these pioneers of Christianity.

Passing "Old Mackinac," on the main land, which forms the southern
border of the straits, we soon came out into the broad waters of Lake
Michigan. Every traveller, and every reader of our history, is familiar
with the incidents connected with the taking of the old fort by the
Indians, in the days of Pontiac. How, by means of a game of ball, played
in an apparently friendly spirit outside the walls, and of which the
officers and soldiers had come forth to be spectators, the ball was
dexterously tossed over the wall, and the savages rushing in, under
pretext of finding it, soon got possession and massacred the garrison.

The little Indian village of L'Arbre Croche gleamed far away south, in
the light of the setting sun. With that exception, there was no sign of
living habitation along that vast and wooded shore. The gigantic
forest-trees, and here and there the little glades of prairie opening to
the water, showed a landscape that would have gladdened the eye of the
agriculturist, with its promise of fertility; but it was evidently
untrodden by the foot of man, and we left it, in its solitude, as we
took our course westward across the waters.

The rainy and gusty weather, so incident to the equinoctial season,
overtook us again before we reached the mouth of Green Bay, and kept us
company until the night of our arrival upon the flats, about three miles
below the settlement. Here the little steamer grounded "fast and hard."
As almost every one preferred braving the elements to remaining cooped
up in the quarters we had occupied for the past week, we decided to
trust ourselves to the little boat, spite of wind, and rain, and
darkness, and in due time we reached the shore.
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