The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1904-06-04
! From Generation !
to Generation. f!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A Story Of Indian Revenge.
lkkkkk<%kk%%k%%kk<k+%<%k+ |
by Marguerite stabier.

THERE was no death-dance, no loud
/ wailing, no burning. OF the five
survivors of the horrible massacre,
Sitra was the only one unscathed.
When the first ray of daylight thinned
the blackness around her sufficiently to
give her her bearings, she crept out OF
her covert, back to the scene. The
white men were gone, but their work
had been we'll done. The grasses were
.dabbled with blood, the pools were
clotted and red, there were still faint
.groans from the dying and hooking
.grins on the upturned faces of the
dead.
In the midst of the mangled bodies,
Black Wing lay dead. Sikra was only
squaw; she did not know how to
.swoon and drip tears, but the sun was
high before she moved a muscle or
drew deep breath. When, at last,
however, she trudged over the sand.
slipped into her canoe, and padded
slowly down the bay there was not one
hideous detail of the massacre of In
dian island not scared deep into her
soul.
The government was held responsible
for the massacre by outsiders; and the
overt acts of hostility on the part of
some of the chiefs was cited as the
cause by those more closely initiated.
The perpetrators, perhaps citizens OF
Eureka. although suspected, were never
charged with the crime, but as time
went on it was generally conceded
TO be the work of private individuals,
who had their own object in view.
AS time went on and the Indians
were herded onto the Hoopa reserva-
ton, the story of the massacre was
buried beneath other debris of its
kind-treachery on the part Of the red
skin and bad faith of the whites
until the stronger race had gotten all
the power into its hands and driven
the Indian, his wrongs and his rights,
out Of the path of progress.
But the lapse of time that accom-
plished this condition did not wipe out
the injustice of Black Wings death
from Sikra's memory. Grown hag'
gard and old in the interim, she had
not lost one detail of the island scene
from her mind. The boy she bore a
few months after the massacre was
nursed and Graded in the hope Of re-
venge. His slullabies were the death
groans of the wounded warriors and
the wailings of the women and chill
dren who fell in the struggle. His
first lisping words were a vow OF venge;
apce for Black Wings blood. He
knew the grewsome story glibly before
he was old enough to understand 1t
and by the time he was able to grasr
the meaning of his early training. re-
venge was written large in the very
fiber of his being.
l"He is like Black Wing" Sikra said
as each year his straight young limbs
grew longer, his 1.-THE young frame
stronger, and she saw a hope of hel
1ife's object being realized. Mrs
Howe. who lived in the big white
house, often asked, when the old squav
came TO do the weekly washing: "Wh,
don't you make the boy work, Sikra?'
But she Strengthened her. old, ben
back. and grunted: "Well-a not rais'
him for that"
medntlm6 tHe bOy hohVu uP CIV
down the streams. content to bask II
the sunshine, or roamed through thu
forests and mountain solitudes, idl
but thinking, always brooding, plot
ting. thinking.
"You will spoil the boy. Sikra,
.yon do not make him work." the kim
woman OF the white house said again
one afternoon, while a pile of snow.
linen grew under the knotted hands
the old laundress. 'Idleneas will &c
him into mischief" abe added, as tn
.stalwart figure Of the young buc
swung along the roadside, stopped a
the driveway. and sauntered up to tn
back porch. where his mother wa
working. No one else could have sal
this much to Sikra, for her boy wa
the one raw spot in her nature Sh
never permitted the kind-hearted Mr.
" Howe's advice to bother her. however
land only mumbled to herself &c the bi