In the Western immigration Milwaukee was already a station of importance. "Here, on the pier, I see disembarking the Germans, the Norwegians, the Swedes, the Swiss. Who knows how much of old legendary lore, of modern wonder, they have already planted amid the Wisconsin forests? Soon their tales of the origin of things, and the Providence that rules them, will be so mingled with those of the Indian that the very oak-tree will not know them apart, will not know whether itself be a Runic, a Druid, or a Winnebago oak." Margaret reached the island of Mackinaw late in August, and found it occupied by a large representation from the Chippewa and Ottawa tribes, who came there to receive their yearly pension from the Government at Washington. Arriving at night, the steamer fired some rockets, and Margaret heard with a sinking heart the wild cries of the excited Indians, and the pants and snorts of the departing steamer. She walked "with a stranger to a strange hotel," her late companions having gone on with the boat. She found such rest as she could in the room which served at once as sitting and as dining room. The early morning revealed to her the beauties of the spot, and with these the features of her new neighbors. "With the first rosy streak I was out among my Indian neighbors, whose lodges honeycombed the beautiful beach. They were already on the alert, the children creeping out from beneath the blanket door of the lodge, the women pounding corn in their rude mortars, the young men playing on their pipes. I had been much amused, when the strain proper to the Winnebago courting flute was played to me on another instrument, at any one's fancying it a melody. But now, when I heard the notes in their true tone and time, I thought it not unworthy comparison with the sweetest bird-song; and this, like the bird-song, is only practised to allure a mate. The Indian, become a citizen and a husband, no more thinks of playing the flute than one of the _settled-down_ members of our society would of choosing the purple light of love as dyestuff for a surtout." Of the island itself Margaret writes:-- "It was a scene of ideal loveliness, and these wild forms adorned it, as looking so at home in it." The Indian encampment was constantly enlarged by new arrivals, which Margaret watched from the window of her boarding-house. "I was never tired of seeing the canoes come in, and the new arrivals set up their temporary dwellings. The women ran to set up the tent-poles and spread the mats on the ground. The men brought the chests, kettles, and so on. The mats were then laid on the outside, the cedar boughs strewed on the ground, the blanket hung up for a door, and all was completed in less than twenty minutes. Then they began to prepare the night meal, and to learn of their neighbors the news of the day."