Page:Columbus and other heroes of American discovery; (IA columbusotherher00bell).pdf/197

 lying here and there of bark canoes, cut to pieces with tomahawks, and with broken paddles and arrows lying near. Pike's interpreter told him that the canoes were of Sioux and the arrows of Minnesota construction, pointing to the conclusion that war was raging hotly close at hand. Further examination of the relics revealed marks on the paddles of the canoes signifying that Indian men and women had been killed, and the guide was eager in urging retreat, on the ground that their party would be taken for Sioux invaders, and be cut to pieces at the first Chippeway village before any explanation could be given. Only a little time before, three Frenchmen who had ventured up the river had been murdered by the Chippeways; surely the white man would not risk sharing their fate?

But the white man, true to his English blood, was not to be intimidated, and pressed on in spite of all difficulties, till, about two hundred and thirty miles above the Falls, in N. lat. 45°, his men began to drop from fatigue and the severity of the cold. It was evidently impossible to proceed further by water, and Pike realized, now that it was too late, how fatal a mistake had been made in starting so late in the season. After consultation with his party, it was resolved to leave a small detachment with the bulk of the provisions in a log fort, and proceed in sledges with the hardiest of the men to the sources of the Mississippi.

The fort was built with infinite difficulty, and it was not until mid-winter that the sledge journey was begun. Following the course of the Mississippi, now dwindled down to a small stream, scarcely three hundred yards wide, creeping sluggishly along through a flat, uninteresting country—its wide snow-clad stretches tenanted only by troops of elks, with here and there traces of recent conflict between the Indians of the North and the Sioux of the South—the pioneers reached the mouth of the Pine River, flowing from Leech Lake—the most southerly of the cluster of small reservoirs forming the sources of the great river—on the last day of the year.

Here a deserted Chippeway encampment of fifty wigwams—or lodges, as they are called in this part of the country—was found, the marks about it, as interpreted by the Sioux guide, signifying that fifty warriors had recently marched against their enemies and killed four men and four women. The quaint record of the conflict consisted of four painted poles, sharpened at the ends to represent the women, placed about four cedar puppets representing the men, the whole inclosed in a rough circle of poles, hung with deer-*skins, plumes, silk handkerchiefs, etc.