Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/337

Rh

the middle and latter part of the eighteenth century, the hunting camps of the Dakotas and Ojibways often met on either banks of the St. Croix River, as far down as the Falls. Spots are pointed out, on Sunrise, Rush, and Snake Rivers, where bloody fights, massacres, and surprises have taken place, and where lives of helpless women and children, as well as stalwart warriors, have been sacrificed to their implacable warfare. It happened, sometimes, that the camps of either tribe would meet in peace, in order that the hunters might pursue the chase during the winter in security. But no sooner did spring again make its appearance, than the peace was treacherously broken, by either party, and war raged again during the summer, full as deadly as ever.

They did not always succeed in their attempts, each fall, to smoke the pipe of peace together. On one occasion the Ojibway chief, Mons-o-man-ay, sent two of his young men with a peace pipe to a large camp of Dakotas who were, as usual in the fall, approaching to make their winter hunts on the St. Croix River. These young men were received in the enemies' lodges and treacherously killed. They were relatives of the Ojibway chieftain, and he made prepara-