NARRATIVE OF THE EXPEDITION. 269 



At Mr. Baker's, 170 miles above St. Anthony's Falls, I found a 

 stray number of a small newspaper, and first learned the state of 

 the Sane and Fox war. The chief, Blackhawk, had crossed the 

 Mississippi, to enter the Eock River valley ; had murdered Mr. St. 

 Vrain, the United States agent, sustained a conflict with the Illi- 

 nois militia, under Major Stillman, fled to Lake Gushkenong, on 

 the head of Rock River, and drawn upon his movement the 

 United States army, leaving, at last accounts, Generals Atkinson 

 and Dodge in pursuit of him. 



Having struck the Mississippi at the point where the prior 

 narrative describes it {vide Chap XII.), it becomes unnecessary 

 to give details of my descent to St. Anthony's Falls. Leaving 

 Prairie Piercie on the 23d, two days were employed in the descent 

 to Fort Snelling. I found Captain Wm. R. Jouett in command, 

 who received me with courtesy and kindness, and offered every 

 facility, in the absence of Mr. Talliaferro, the United States Indian 

 Agent, for laying the object of my mission before the Sioux. He 

 had received no very recent intelligence of the progress of the 

 Sauc war, in addition to that which I had learned at the mouth of 

 the De Corbeau; although he was in the habit of sending a mail 

 boat or canoe twice a month to Prairie du Chien.* 



On the 25th, being the day after my arrival, I met the assembled 

 Sioux, in council, at the Agency House, the commanding officer 

 being present, and having finished that business, and finding the 

 Sioux wholly unconnected with, and disapproving the proceed- 

 ings of Blackhawk and his adherents, I embarked early the next 

 morning on my return to Lake Superior. I reached the mouth of 

 the River St. Croix, at three o'clock P. M. on the 26th, and having 

 entered the sylvan sheet of Lake St. Croix, ascended it to within a 

 few miles of its head, and encamped. Lieut. Allen did not reach 

 my camp, but halted for the night some seven or eight miles short.f 

 This lake is one of the most beautiful and picturesque sheets of 



* It was not till some time after my return to St. Mary's that I learned of the 

 overthrow of the chief and his army, and his being taken prisoner at the battle of 

 the Badaxe, on the 14th of August, 1832. 



■j- United States soldiers are not adapted to travelling in Indian canoes. Com- 

 paratively clumsy, formal, and used to the comforts of good quarters and shelter, 

 they flinch under the activities and fatigue of forest life, and 2>nrticularly of that 

 kind of life and toil, which consists in the management of canoes, and the carrying 



