Having them now on the run, he followed a short distance, but soon felt very faint.  A darkness seemed before his eyes, and he sank down.  In this act the blood gushed from his body.  This appeared to relieve him.  After sitting some time, he rose and proceeded homeward.  He saw no more of the two yearling bears.  Before reaching the lodge, he was met by a party who had been seeking him.  As he walked along, he felt something striking the calf of his right leg, and found it to be a piece of flesh from his thigh behind.  There were six open holes in his body through which air escaped, one in each side, one in his breast, abdomen, and stomach, besides the torn cheek.  He found, on reaching home, he could not speak, but, after being bandaged, his utterance revived.  On the next day the physician from the forks of Red River arrived and attended him.

20th.  Annamikens resumed his narrative:—­

“On the next day, I have said, the doctor arrived, but not having medicine sufficient to dress all my wounds, he put what he had on the principal wounds.  On the same day my brother and the party who had separated on the council-ground also arrived.  They remained that and the next day, and on the third day all moved for Pembina.  To carry me they constructed a litter, carried by four persons; but I found the motion too great to endure.  They then formed a bier by fastening two poles to a horse’s sides, and placing such fixtures upon them, behind the horse, as to permit my being carried.  I found this motion easier to endure.  The Chippewas accompanied me, and were resolved, if I died, to go immediately to war against the Sioux.  My condition was, at this moment, such that they hourly expected my death.  I was prepared for it, and directed that I should be buried at the spot where I might die.  On the third day we reached Pembina.  For nine days I resisted food, feigning that I could not eat, but wishing to starve myself, as I was so disfigured and injured that I had no wish to survive, and would have been ashamed to show myself in such a state.  On the ninth day my hunger was so great that I called for a piece of fish, and swallowed it; in about two hours after I called for another piece of fish, and also ate it.  Six days after my arrival, Mr. Plavier, and another priest from Red River, arrived to baptize me.  I resisted, saying that if there was no hope of living I would consent, but not otherwise.  After fifteen days, I was so much recovered that the priest returned, as I had every appearance of recovery.  I would neither permit white nor Indian doctors to attend me after my arrival; but had myself regularly washed in cold water, my wounds kept clean, and the bandages properly attended to.  In about one month from the time I could walk; but it was two years before the wounds were closed.”

I requested Dr. Z. Pitcher, the Post surgeon, to examine Annamikens, with a view to test the narrative, and to determine on the capacity of the human frame to survive such wounds.  He found portions of the cheek-bones gone, and cicatrices of fearful extent upon that and other parts of the body, which gave the narrative the appearance of truthfulness.