The ensuing autumn she had the pleasure to see him return, having now conceived for him the most tender attachment. Upon his visit the following season, she presented him with a fine daughter, born during his absence, and whom she had nursed with the fondest attention. With the infant in her arms, she had daily seated herself on the bank of the river, and followed the downward course of the stream, with her eye, to gain the earliest notice of his approach. Thus time passed on. The second year the father greeted a son, and obtained his squaw's reluctant consent to take their daughter with him on his return voyage to the country of the white people. But no sooner had he commenced his voyage, and although she had another charge upon which to lavish her caresses, than her maternal fondness overpowered her, and she ran crying and screaming along the river side in pursuit of the boat, tearing out her long flowing hair, and appearing to be almost bereft of reason. On her return home she gave away every thing she possessed, cut off her hair, went into deep mourning, and remained inconsolable. She would often say that she well knew that her daughter would be better treated than she could be at home, but she could not avoid regarding her own situation to be the same as if the Wahconda had taken away her offspring for ever. One day, in company with six other squaws, she was engaged in her agricultural labours, her infant boy being secured to his cradle-like board, which she {226} had carefully reclined against a tree at a short distance. They were discovered by a war-party of Sioux, who rushed towards them, with the expectation of gratifying their vengeance by securing all their scalps. An exclamation from her companions directed her attention to the common enemy, and in her fright she fled precipitately, but suddenly recollecting her child, she swiftly returned full in the face of the Sioux, snatched her child from the tree, and turned to save its life, more precious than her own. She was closely pursued by one of the enemy, when she arrived at a fence which separated her from the field of the trading house. A moment's hesitation here would have been fatal; and, exerting all her strength, she threw the child, with its board, as far as she could on the opposite side. Four of the squaws were tomahawked, and the others escaped, of which number the mother was one, having succeeded in bearing off her child uninjured. The trader, on his arrival at the settlements, learned that his white or civilized wife had died during his absence, and after a short interval devoted to the usual formalities of mourning, he united his destinies with another, and highly amiable lady. The second season his wife accompanied him on his annual voyage up the Missouri, to his trading house, the abode of his squaw.