An Indian tale of 1800 comes to my mind which my forefathers have told to me. In the early days the settlers had to devise plans to keep their sheep from the wolves. As their flocks increased their next great difficulty was to keep their sheep from the Indians’ dogs. The first settlements were, of course, along the shores of the great lakes, Ontario and Erie. Twice a year, spring and fall, the Indians would come out from the woods to fish in those lakes and marshes, and at the outlets of the streams. So numerous were the Indians at that time that they far outnumbered the whites, and when they came for the semi-annual fish they would form a regular village, as they congregated in their tents beside the shore of some marsh or bay upon the great lakes.
The settlers’ policy was one pre-eminently of conciliation to the Indians. But they would at every visit be accompanied by a lot of half-starved, ill-favored curs, which would worry the settlers’ sheep. At one visit they had a particularly large gaunt brute of a dog, which badly worried a sheep of my forefather. He remonstrated with the chief, and desired him to keep the dog at the camp, which he promised to do. Nightly he penned his sheep as usual, to keep off the wolves, but during the day this dog continued to worry them when out of sight among the log and brush on the partially cleared fields, and finally killed one. My people resolved to suffer it no longer, and at great risk of their lives and property shot the Indian dog--dead as they supposed. Then they took the dog that the Indians might not find him, and know that they had shot him, and put him in a hollow pine stub, the top of which stood some ten feet from the ground, and which was hollow to the bottom. Bury the dog they dared not, because the sharp-eyed Indian would discover the newly-turned earth and fish it out, and they knew they could not otherwise hide him successfully. That evening about forty Indians came looking for the animal, and searched every place, probable and improbable, indoors and out, and my people dared not refuse them admittance. Without a doubt my forefather will be pardoned for “telling a white one” when he averred that he had not got the dog. At this juncture it became by far too serious to jest or prevaricate, for their lives literally depended upon the Indians’ successful search for that canine. Search as they would, however, they did not find it, and darkness gratefully set in and put an end to their investigation for that day. But little sleep the settlers were able to take that night through dead fear that the Indians might possibly find the cur. Next morning, just at the first peep of day, my forefather was up and out to the stump, when to his intense astonishment and disgust the dog was barking and scratching within the stub to get out. He had not been effectually killed, and had come back again to life. Now here was a dilemma, and what was to be done? To get up on the stub and fire at the dog again was more than he dared, for it would arouse the Indians only half a mile away.