She came one day, accompanied by a half-grown boy, carrying a young fawn she had brought me as a present.  I was delighted with the pretty creature—­with its soft eyes and dappled coat; but having often heard the simile, “as wild as a fawn,” I did not anticipate much success in taming it.  To my great surprise, it soon learned to follow me like a dog.  Wherever I went, there Fan was sure to be.  At breakfast, she would lie down at my feet, under the table.  One of her first tokens of affection was to gnaw off all the trimming from my black silk apron, as she lay pretending to caress and fondle me.  Nor was this her only style of mischief.

One day we heard a great rattling among the crockery in the kitchen.  We ran to see what was the matter, and found that Miss Fan had made her way to a shelf of the dresser, about two feet from the ground, and was endeavoring to find a comfortable place to lie down, among the plates and dishes.  I soon observed that it was the shelter of the shelf above her head that was the great attraction, and that she was in the habit of seeking out a place of repose under a chair, or something approaching to an “umbrageous bower.”  So after this I took care, as the hour for her morning nap approached, to open a large green parasol, and set it on the matting in the corner—­then when I called “Fan, Fan,” she would come and nestle under it, and soon fall fast asleep.

One morning Fan was missing.  In vain we called and sought her in the garden—­in the enclosure for the cattle—­at the houses of the Frenchmen—­along the hill towards Paquette’s—­no Fan was to be found.  We thought she had asserted her own wild nature and sped away to the woods.

It was a hot forenoon, and the doors were all open.  About dinner-time, in rushed Fan, panting violently, and threw herself upon her side, where she lay with her feet outstretched, her mouth foaming, and exhibiting all the signs of mortal agony.  We tried to give her water, to soothe her, if perhaps it might be fright that so affected her; but in a few minutes, with a gasp and a spasm, she breathed her last.  Whether she had been chased by the greyhounds, or whether she had eaten some poisonous weed, which, occasioning her suffering, had driven her to her best friends for aid, we never knew; but we lost our pretty pet, and many were the tears shed for her.

* * * * *

Very shortly after the departure of my husband, we received a visit from “the White Crow,” the “Little Priest,” and several others of the principal chiefs of the Bock River Indians.  They seemed greatly disappointed at learning that their Father was from home, even though his errand was to get “the silver.”  We sent for Paquette, who interpreted for us the object of their visit.

They had come to inform us that the Sauk chief Black Hawk and his band, who, in compliance with a former treaty, had removed some time previous to the west of the Mississippi, had now returned to their old homes and hunting-grounds, and expressed a determination not to relinquish them, but to drive off the white settlers who had begun to occupy them.