SOURCE OF ST. PETER S RIVER. 409 



to the recent loss of part of his family, aggravated by a 

 very painful calculous disease under which he was then la- 

 bouring, and which had induced him to visit the fort in 

 hopes of obtaining relief from the surgeon of the garri- 

 son. 



Having always traded with the Chippewas, married 

 among them, and been considered as connected with them, 

 he had entertained great apprehensions of the Dacotas ; for 

 the Indians generally extend to those that trade with their 

 enemies the same animosity which they bear to those na- 

 tions. About a year before the time when we saw him, he 

 was residing at Pembina on Red river. Provisions became 

 so scarce at that place, that the settlers were reduced to 

 live upon lettuce seasoned with salt; about one hundred 

 and fifty of them had gone out to hunt buffalo, and he at 

 last resolved to go and join them, with four of the settlers 

 and his family, consisting of two daughters. They had tra- 

 velled five days across the prairie, killing game enough 

 for a bare subsistence, and keeping a constant guard for 

 fear of being surprised by the Yanktons, who rove over 

 those prairies. The extent to which he carried his pre- 

 cautions shows the deep presentiment which oppressed him 

 at the time ; often, as he informed us himself, after his 

 party had passed over the top of a gentle swell or little 

 elevation in the prairie, he would cause them to halt, while 

 he would turn back, and crawl along the ground to the top of 

 the hill, then, raising his head above the surface, concealing 

 it at the same time behind a little grass which he had cut 

 for the purpose, observe whether there were Indians to be 

 seen in any direction. His friends ridiculed his fears, and 

 two of them separated from him, but the event proved 

 how well-founded his apprehensions were. On the 6th day 

 his horse having broken the halter by which he was fastn 



Vol. I. 52 



