124 EXPEDITION TO THE 



might have removed at that date, by the river, from some 

 other part of the state. The young man told me that his 

 father had changed his residence a very short time before 

 he was carried off, and had been settled on the banks of 

 the Ohio only about ten days, when the attack of the In- 

 dians took place. He mentioned particularly his having 

 come down the river in a large boat or flat with horses and 

 cattle. He also mentioned, that, at the place where his 

 father lived previous to his removal, there was a brook 

 running in a cavern under ground, where they used to go 

 with a candle to take water," &c. 



Through the benevolent and active interference of Lord 

 Selkirk, Tanner was restored to his family, who recogniz- 

 ed him and received him well. He had already brought 

 several of his children into the United States, and had 

 three of them at Mackinaw, when, in 1823, he determined 

 to return to the Lake of the Woods for the others. The 

 Indians, it appears, manifested great unwillingness to allow 

 the two young girls to be taken out of the country, and they 

 opposed his endeavours, until finally, with the assistance 

 of Dr. IVI'Laughlin, he succeeded in removing the children. 

 He appears to have felt but little affection for the mother of 

 his daughters, and wished her to remain in the country; 

 but she, finding her efforts to keep her daughters unavail- 

 ing, resolved to go with them. They had passed Rainy 

 Lake and were at the Portage de I'Isle, in Bad, (INIaligne,) 

 river, when the wife induced an Indian, who was travel- 

 ling with them, to shoot Tanner. She, it appears, bribed 

 him with the promise of her elder daughter. 



The poor man was near falling a victim to the plot; his 

 wife ran away with the Indian, took her daughters with 

 her, and left him alone and wounded; fortunately he was 

 picked up by a canoe going to Rainy Lake ; they conve}*^- 



