NARRATIVE OF THE EXPEDITION. 225 



sources of tlie Mississippi to render explorations practicable. 

 He also represented it impracticable, this season, to enter the 

 Mississippi by the way of the Broule, or Misakoda River, This 

 information was confirmed on reaching Chegoimegon, at the 

 remarkable group of the Confederation Islands {mite, p. 105). 

 Returning eight miles on my track, I entered the Muskigo, or 

 Mauvais River, and ascended this stream by all its bad rafts, 

 rapids, and portages, to the upper waters of the River St. Croix 

 of the Mississippi. Crossing the intermediate table-lands, with 

 their intricate system of lakes and portages to Lac Cowteroille, 

 or Ottawa Lake, I entered one of the main sources of Chippewa 

 River, and descended this prime tributary stream to its entrance 

 into the Mississippi, at the foot of Lake Pepin. From the latter 

 point I descended to Prairie du Chien, and to Galena in Illinois. 

 Dispatching the men and canoes from this place back to ascend 

 the AVisconsin River, and meet me at the portage of Fort Winne- 

 bago, I crossed the lead-mine country by land, by the way of the 

 Pekatolica, Blue Mound, and Four Lakes, to the source of the 

 Fox River, and rejoining my canoes here, descended this stream 

 to Green Bay, and returned to my starting-point by the way of 

 Michilimackinac and the Straits of St. Mary. Two months and 

 twelve days were employed on the journey, during which a line 

 of forests and Indian trails had been passed, of two thousand 

 three hundred miles. 



The Indians had been met, and counselled with at various 

 points, at which presents and provisions were distributed, and 

 the peace policy of the Government enforced. A Chippewa war 

 party, under Ninaba, had been arrested on its march against the 

 Sioux in descending the Red Cedar fork of the Chippewa River. 

 Information was obtained that nine tribes or bands had united in 

 their sympathies for the restless Sauks and Foxes, who broke out 

 in hostility to the United States the following spring. Messages, 

 with pipes and belts, and in one case notice, with a tomahawk 

 smeared with vermilion, to symbolize war, had passed between 

 these tribes.* 



The information was communicated to the Government, with a 



* An outline of the expedition of 1831 is fouml in Schoolcraft's "Thirty Years 

 on the American Frontiers." Lippincott & Co. Phila. 1850. 



15 



