Michigan broke upon the wide, sandy beach, whence the tossing waters
stretched away in tumultuous loneliness to their blending with the
distant sky. Southward, along the shore of the lake, the nearly level
plain, brown and sun-parched, soon merged into rounded heaps of
wind-drifted sand, barely diversified by a few straggling groups of
cottonwoods. To the westward extended the boundless prairie, flat and
bare as a floor, except where the southern fork of the little river cut
its way through the soft loam, and gave rise to a scrubby growth of
cottonwood and willow; while northward, across the main body of the
river, the land appeared more rugged and broken, and somewhat heavily
wooded with oak and other forest trees, but equally devoid of evidences
of habitation.

In all this wide survey from the little knoll on which the Fort stood,
five houses only were visible. These were built roughly of logs in the
most primitive style of the frontier, and, with a single exception, were
now deserted by their occupants, who had retreated for safety to the
stockade of the Fort. The single exception was the larger and more
ambitious dwelling standing on the north bank of the river, occupied by
John Kinzie and his family, himself an old-time Indian trader, whose
honesty and long dealing with the savages had made him confident of their
friendship and fidelity. At one time, however, so threatening had become
the strange bands that flocked in toward Dearborn, as crows to a feast,
he also deserted his home, and, with those dependent upon him, sought
refuge within the Fort walls; but, influenced by the pledge of the
Pottawattomies, and believing that safety lay in trusting to their
friendship, they had returned to their own house. The other cabins were
scattered to the westward of the stockade, close to the river bank.
These dwellings had been occupied by the families of Ouilmette, Burns,
and Lee, respectively; while the last named owned a second cabin, built