Follow the River

From one of the Frenchmen, LaPlante, Mary learns that the chieftain is named Captain Wildcat. Mary gets her sewing basket from Captain Wildcat and begins mending the women’s clothes. The Frenchmen, LaPlante and Goulart, ask Mary if she will make shirts from the checked cloth they have, and she agrees. She works at the trading post making shirts while a Shawnee woman named An-Otter-Swimming-On-Its-Back, or Otter Girl, looks after her baby daughter, whom Mary has named Bettie Elenor. She learns that the village is called Lower Shawnee Town and is on the banks of the Scioto River near the O-y-o River. Mary sees LaPlante and Goulart selling the shirts and asks for a cut. They agree to pay her in blankets. One day, while measuring Wildcat for a shirt, he asks Mary if she will go with him to his hometown, Kispoko. She refuses, and he is hurt.

Some days later, the captives are brought to the longhouse. They paint two of the prisoners black. The rest are divvied up among the Shawnee. Bettie is sent away with a middle-aged man. LaPlante and Goulart have made a deal that Mary will stay at the trading post with them to sew shirts.