Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/314

304 was as bloody and unremitting as the feud which was being carried on by the St. Croix and Upper Mississippi divisions of their tribe with the Kaposia, Warpeton, and Sisseton Dakotas. The country of their present occupation is covered with spots where the warriors of either tribe have met in mortal strife. Almost every bend on Chippeway and Menominee rivers has been the scene of a fight, surprise, or bloody massacre, and one of their chiefs remarked with truth when asked to sell his lands, that "the country was strewn with the bones of their fathers, and enriched with their blood."

From the time we have mentioned, when Cadotte wintered on the outskirts of the western prairies, the Ojibways may be considered as having taken actual possession of the valuable hunting region stretching from Lake Superior nearly three hundred miles to the lower Falls of the Chippeway River, within two days' march of the Mississippi.

Through the efforts and influence of their early traders, peace was occasionally effected. John Baptiste and Michel Cadotte on the part of the Ojibways, and Mons. La Roque on the part of the Dakotas, are mentioned, and deserve much credit, as often having arrested the blow of the war-club, and changing what would have been scenes of bloodshed and death to those of peace and rejoicing. These terms of peace were generally short and transient, and seldom lasted the full length of a year. For no sooner than spring and summer again came around, the time of pastime and recreation for the red hunters, than a longing desire seized the warriors for blood and renown, or revenge for old injuries, or to wipe away the paint of mourning for the death of some near relative. The villagers of either tribe never considered the pleasures of the general summer season as complete, without the enjoyment of dancing and singing merrily around the scalp lock of an enemy.