Bloody retribution overtook at least one of those among the savages who on the day of the massacre showed no mercy to his victims. This was a chief known as a deadly enemy of the whites and who bore the expressive name of Shavehead, because of his peculiar manner of tying up his scanty hair. Years afterwards Chief Shavehead was in company with a band of hunters in the Michigan woods; in the party was a white man who had formerly been a soldier at Fort Dearborn, and was one of the survivors of the battle on the lake shore. At one of the campfires the chief, being of a boastful disposition related, while under the influence of liquor to those sitting about the camp-fire, the frightful tale concerning the events of that day, dwelling upon its horrors and boasting of his own deeds. He was not aware that one of the whites whom he had so fiercely assailed was at that moment listening to his braggart utterances. The old soldier, as he heard the tale, was maddened by the recall of the well-remembered scenes. Toward nightfall the old savage departed alone in the direction of the forest. Silently the soldier with loaded rifle followed upon his steps. Others observed them as they passed out of sight into the shades of the forest. The soldier returned after a time to his companions, but Shavehead was never again seen. "He had paid the penalty of the crime," says Mason, "to one who could with some fitness exact it." The War of 1812, between the United States and Great Britain, was actually begun some time before the date of the declaration of war issued by the United States, on June 12, 1812; and it was continued some time after the treaty of peace had been signed, December 24, 1814. Of this war, the Fort Dearborn massacre on August 15, 1812, was one of the disastrous events. "The lives of thirty thousand Americans," says Larned, "were sacrificed during this war of two and a half years, and the national debt was increased one hundred millions of dollars."