"The pale moon still creeps from her daily rest, Throwing her rays o'er the river's dark breast, The katydid and cricket, I trow, In days gone by, chirruped, even as now. "Indian! thy camp-fires no longer are smoldering, Thy bones 'neath the forest moss long have been moldering, The 'Great Spirit' claims thee. He leadeth thy tribe. To new hunting-grounds not won with a bribe. "On thy Watch Tow'r the paleface his home now makes. His dwelling, the site of the forest tree takes. Gone are thy wigwams, the wild deer long fled, Black Hawk, with his tribe, lie silent and dead." {Illustration: Shabbona, or "Built Like a Bear," Pottwatomie Chief. "The White Man's Friend."} CHAPTER XII. SHABBONA, THE WHITE MAN'S FRIEND--THE CELEBRATED POTTAWATOMIE CHIEF. "Is Saul also among the prophets?" Is Shabbona classed among the _famous_ Indian chiefs? He who was only chief of a small band or village? Yes, and for the best of reasons. "Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 'Tis only noble to be good; Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood." However, we will tell the story of his life, and let the reader judge whether he is rightly classified. According to his own statement he was born in an Ottawa village about the beginning of the Revolutionary War, in the year 1775 or 1776. We have before us, as we write, three different sketches of his life, and though they all agree as to the date, they mention three distinct birth places, widely separated. Thus we find that Matson, his principal biographer, says "he was born at an Indian village on the Kankakee River, in what is now Will County, Illinois." Caroline M. McIlvane, librarian of the Chicago Historical Society, in her interesting sketch of Shabbona, says, "he was born at an Indian village on the Maumee River"; while one of the speakers at the dedication of the Shabbona monument, which occurred at Morris, Illinois, October 23, 1903, said "Shabbona was born at the principal village of the Ottawas in Canada." Who shall decide when the doctors disagree? His father, a nephew of the illustrious Pontiac, was a war-chief of the Ottawas, and was undoubtedly a man of ability, as he was one of the commissioners representing his tribe in Wayne's treaty at Greenville, in 1795, and made a speech on that occasion.