The next morning early, we resumed our boat and rowed into Bayfield, arriving in time to be present at the opening of the land office. With much anxiety, I made application to enter the vacant lands that had been selected on this trip, fearing that the men whom we had overheard talking in the woods two days before, might have arrived in advance of me and have secured at least a part of the same descriptions. With great satisfaction, however, I found the lands to be still vacant, and all of the minutes chosen while on this strenuous cruise, I bought.
A little before noon of this same day, two well-known land hunters from Chippewa Falls came in, in their boat, off the lake, and, on going to the land office, applied to enter nearly all of the lands which I had secured a few hours before.
The moralist might point with justification to the fact that had we not rested on Sunday, more than likely we should not have known of the presence of any competitors in the field, and should not, therefore, have worked so many long hours in our boat on that windy day, nor should we likely have reached the land office in advance of the two men who arrived there only a few hours later than ourselves.
"By the shores of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea-Water, Stood the wigwam of Nokomis, Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis. Dark behind it rose the forest, Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees, Rose the firs with cones upon them; Bright before it beat the water, Beat the clear and sunny water, Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water."
Chief John Buffalo was a superior Indian, always pleasant, companionable, and willing to do a full day's work. He seemed to prefer the society of the white men, and therefore spent much of his time with them. The Indian grows to manhood schooled in superstition. I recall that during the first long trip from the mouth of Montreal River to the Flambeau Reservation, and thence to the mouth of the Flambeau River, on one evening the party camped near by a natural meadow where the grass had ripened and was dry. Our three Indians went out with their knives, to gather armfuls of the grass to spread in our tents to soften our beds for the night. While thus engaged, Antoine, one of the Indians, encountered a blow-snake. This reptile, when defending itself, emits an odor which is sickening, but among white men is not considered very dangerous. There was no question but that Antoine was made sick for that evening by the snake, which had not touched him but had been very near to him. Ed and Frank, the other two Indians of the party, told us that evening that it was too bad, for Antoine surely would die within the year as a result of his having gotten this odor from the blow-snake. Two years subsequently, I landed at Bayfield from a Lake Superior steamer, and one of the first persons I met on the dock was Antoine, who looked as hale and hearty and well as he was before his experience with the blow-snake. On congratulating him for his victory over the dire calamity predicted, because of his encounter two years previous with the blow-snake, he was considerably embarrassed, but made no explanation why he was yet alive.