Original - North Central Michigan College Library

anfcAfter being here a fortnight, we were joined bya body of Indians, flying, like ourselves, fromfamine. Two days after, there came a youngIndian out of the woods alone, and reportingthat he had left the family to which he belongedbehind in a starving condition andunable, from their weakly and exhausted state,to pursue their journey to the bay. The appearanceof this youth was frightful; and fromhis squalid figure there issued a stench whichnone of us could support.His arrival struck our camp with horror anduneasiness; and it was not long before the Indianscame to me, saying, that they suspectedhe had been eating human flesh, and eventhat he had killed and devoured the familywhich he pretended to have left behind.These charges, upon being questioned, hedenied; but not without so much equivocationin his answers as to increase the presumptionagainst him. In consequence, the Indiansdetermined on traveling a day's journey on histrack; observing that they should be able todiscover from his encampments whether hewere guilty or not. The next day they returned,bringing with them a human hand andskull. The hand had been left roasting beforea fire, while the intestines, taken out of thebody from which it was cut, hung fresh on aneighboring tree.The youth, being informed of these discoveries,and further questioned, confessed the199