A pretty story of early times in America is that of the restoration of a little girl to her parents by the Indians. It is quoted from Currey's "Story of Old Fort Dearborn," by the New York Post. The child, who was nine years old at the time of her capture in western Pennsylvania, was well treated, came to regard the chief and his mother with love and reverence, learned their language and customs, and almost forgot her own. At the end of four years, this chief was invited by a colonel who was very popular with the red men to bring the girl to a council fire at Ft. Niagara. He accepted the invitation upon condition that there should be no effort to reclaim the child. When the boat in which the chief and his captive had crossed the Niagara River touched the bank, the girl sprang into the arms of her waiting mother. The chief was deeply moved. "She shall go," he said. "The mother must have her child again. I will go back alone." In the words of her daughter-in-law, who wrote of this period many years afterward:

"With one silent gesture of farewell he turned and stepped on board the boat. No arguments or entreaties could induce him to remain at the council; but having gained the other side of the Niagara, he mounted his horse, and with his young men was soon lost in the depths of the sheltered forests."

The girl became the wife of John Kinzie, "Chicago's pioneer."