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band or village of the Ojibways, who had dispossessed the Dakotas of Sandy Lake, under the guidance of their chief Bi-aus-wah, continued to receive accessions to their ranks from the shores of Lake Superior, and continued to gain ground on the Dakotas, till they forced them to evacuate their hunting grounds and village sites on Cass and Winnepeg lakes, and to concentre their forces on the islands of Leech Lake, of which, for a few years, they managed to keep possession.

Being, however, severely harassed by the persevering encroachments of the Ojibways, and daily losing the lives of their hunters from their oft-repeated incursions, and war parties, the Dakotas at last came to the determination of making one concentrated tribal effort to check the farther advance of their invaders, and, if possible, put out forever the fires which the Ojibways had lit on the waters of the Upper Mississippi. They called on the different bands of their common tribe living toward the south and west, to aid them in their enterprise, and a numerous war party is