enough to convince us that they were human bones. The ground that was
burned over might have been, from the appearance, twelve feet square. It
must have been done a great many years before, for the ground to make,
and the brush to grow over it.

This creek, the Ecorse, not being fed by any rivulets or springs from
hills or mountains, is supplied entirely by surface water. It is
sometimes quite a large stream, but during dry weather in the summer time
it is entirely dry. The Englishman was digging it deeper to take off the
surface water when it came.

It is possible that, sometime, Indians had burned their captives there.
In fact there is no doubt of it. It must have been the work of Indians.
We may go back in our imaginations to the time, when the place where the
city of Detroit now stands was an Indian town or village, and ask its
inhabitants if they knew who were burned twelve miles west of there on a
creek, they might not be able to tell. We might ask the giant Indian of
the sand hill, if he knew, and he might say, "I had a hand in that; it
was in my day." But we have no medium, through which we can find out the
dark mysteries of the past. They will have to remain until the light of
eternity dawns, and all the dead who have ever lived are called to be
again, and to come forth. Then the dark mysteries of the past which have
been locked up for centuries will be revealed.




CHAPTER XII.

THE INSIDE OF OUR HOUSE--A PICTURE FROM MEMORY.