Sharp County record., 1880-01-15

inc the work ofthe Indian harvest
Wakuzza was happy. They were pros
porous, for the ish and game were
plentiful. They nd decided to return
| to their home in ew days. One night
after their fire hal burnt low, she lay
awake, her baby having been restless.
Listening to the low swirl of the distant
Mackenzie, as it poured onward over Its
rocky bed to he Arctic Ocean, her
quick ear caught he sound of low voices
and stealthy STEPS. Instantly she gave
the alarm. Too ate! The Athabascas
were among then. Shouting their war
crv, they clubbel and stabbed all the
men, the childrel, and one woman to
death. In the confusion following the
attack, Wakuzzl had, unnoticed, rolled
her baby, who vas then sleeping sound
" in its moss-liasd cradle, into a bundle
Of blankets and skins. So, when the
sorrowful captive women were led Off,
she alone had her child with her.
Lightly was bone the burden on Wa
kuzza's back.
Before morning they had reached the
banks of the Mackenzie, and here they
found the women and children of the
party who had attacked them camped,
their canoes dragged high above the
waters. A fir, burned brightly; around
it sat, in sis9ee, the women of the
Athabascas sitting, they counted the
warriors as each emerged from the
gloom of the trail. All were
alive; none was wounded. Then
arose the hagS, clamoring
with delight and curiosity. The
three captive women were turned over
to them for examination. Eagerly these
miserable creatures took possession OF
the bundles the three captives carried.
Two had been unrolled. They con-
tanned ierked meat, dried fish, and robes
Wakuzza's bundle was then placed on
the earth, by the fire, the ends un-
fapped, and it was rolled out. There,
on its back, lay the little cradle, and the
baby, open-eyed at the novel scene,
cooed loudly and held out its hands.
Wakuzza sprang forward, snatched the
infant from its cradle, turned slightly
away, and placed him to her breast.
Unseen by her, an Athabasca woman
ran lightly to her, and, catching thG
nursing child firmly by the ankles, Jerked
it away from the mothers arms, and,
swinging it above her mead, dashed its
brains out on granite rock. Coolly
she turned to the horror-strlcken mother,
wickedly she threw the quivering corpse
to her, saving, "Suckle it." ". The poor
mother, stupefed with horror, mechan-
icallv held the corpse until ordered to
oet into a canoe. Then another woman
ierked the little body from her and
threw it far out into the water OF the
Mackenzie, saying: alt will make good
fish bait" Quivering, blood-stained,
dumb, Wakuzza stood and watched the
BODY of her dead baby float short dis
tance, and then, with sudden jerk, dis
appear under the swollen July waters
OF the mighty river. Her benumbed
,osse4 slI5; ;eile chief prize, had been
allotted to the leader of the midnight
attack-thrust paddle into her hands
and babe her get into the canoe and 60
to work. Slowly the party assembled the
stream to the Great Slave Lake. They
padded across this to the mouth Of the
Athabasca River, then up that stream
to the Lesser Slave Lake, and here they
made their winter encampment. DAILY
for two months had Wakuzza toiled pad
ding her owner and his family to their
home and away from herS-toiled to
carry herself into slavery.
The evening that work was finished
on the winter encampment, the vile OF
her owner, who was the woman who
had Drained her baby, told her that she
was to become her captor's Wlfe-no
longer to be slave, but wife. Wakuz-
"a Taced inwardly with Il fury of horror
at this fate of sharing the bed of the
woman who had so cruelty murdered
her child; but it was the raging OF a
slave. who dared not give voice to her
feelings. The simple marriage cere-
mony being performed, she soon became
her captor5s favorite. Daily the abhor-
renee of her unchosen husband grew on
her. Spring came, and with it the pc
Rod of deep unrest and disturbance that
fills the hearts of all red women at that
time. The desire to escape, to go, she
cared not where, became intense, and,
no longer able Or caring to resist it, she
resolved to risk her life in trying to es-
cape. Selling an opportunity, made by
the residents of the camp gathering
around some moose the hunters had
just brought in (the Indians being poor,
very poor, loved to gaze on their meat
before eating it), she united the lightest
and fastest canoe, and, getting in, start
ed for the Athabasca River, not far dis
tant. Wakuzza had with her, when she
fled for her home, a few deer sinews, a
piece of iron hoop four inches long and