RUMOURS OF WAR. 21 



with us, as we expected not to be more than eight or 

 ten days on our voyage, and knew that we should 

 meet with plenty of ducks along the river. We 

 therefore contented ourselves with twenty pounds of 

 flour, and the same of pemmican, with about half as 

 much salt pork, some grease, tinder, and matches, a 

 small quantity of tea, salt, and tobacco, and plenty of 

 ammunition. A tin kettle and frying-pan, some 

 blankets and a waterproof sheet, a small axe, and a 

 gun and hunting-knife apiece, made up the rest of our 

 equipment. 



Whilst we were completing our preparations, 

 another half-breed came in, in a great state of excite- 

 ment, with the news that a war party of Sioux were 

 lurkins: in the neiofhbourhood. He had been out 

 looking for elk, when he suddenly observed several 

 Indians skulking in the brushwood ; from their paint 

 and equipment he knew them to be Sioux on the war- 

 path. They did not appear to have perceived him, 

 and he turned and fled, escaping to the settlement 

 unpursued. We did not place much reliance on his 

 story, or the various reports we had heard, and set out 

 the next day alone. How fearfully true these rumours 

 of the hostility of the Sioux, which we treated so 

 lightly at the time, turned out to be, is already known 

 to the reader. As we got ready^to start, the Iroquois 

 sat on the bank, smoking sullenly, and showdng 

 neither by word nor sign any intention of accepting 

 our ofler of the previous day. Milton and Rover 

 occupied the smaller canoe, while Treemiss and Cheadle 

 navigated the larger one. At first we experienced 



