said to have been collected at Leech Lake by the Dakotas to carry out the resolution which they had formed.
Instead, however, of concentrating their forces and sweeping the Ojibway villages in detail, they separated into three divisions, with the intention of striking three different sections of the enemy on the same day. One party marched against the village at Sandy Lake, one against the Ojibways at Rainy Lake, and one proceeded northward against a small band of Ojibways who had already reached as far west as Pembina, and who, in connection with the Kenistenos and Assineboins, severely harassed the northern flank of the Leech Lake Dakotas.
The party proceeding against Rainy Lake, met a large war party of Ojibways from that already important and numerous section of the tribe, and a severe battle was fought between them. The Dakotas returned to Leech Lake disheartened from the effects of a severe check, and the loss of many of their bravest warriors.
The second division, proceeding in their war canoes against the Sandy Lake village, met with precisely the same fate. They were paddling down the smooth current of the Mississippi, when one morning they met a canoe containing the advance scouts of a large Ojibway war party, who were on their route to attack their village at Leech Lake; these scouts were immediately attacked, and pursued by the Dakotas into a small lake, where the main body of the Ojibways coming up, both parties landed and fought for half a day on the shores of the lake. This battle is noted from the fact that a Dakota was killed here whose feet were both previously cut half off either by frost or some accident, and the lake where the fight took place is known to this day as "Keesh-ke-sid-a-boin Sah-ga-e-gun" "Lake of the cut-foot Dakota." The belligerent parties both retreated to their respective villages from this point,
