and much mixed with the unnatural, I refrain from giving the details.
This incursion to the Dakota country is, however, notable from the fact, that it is the first visit of the kind which the Ojibways of this section tell of their ancestors having made to the Minnesota River. When the warriors left their homes in the north, it was early spring, and the leaves had not yet budded. On arriving at the Minnesota River, however, they were surprised to find spring far advanced, and the leaves on the trees which shaded its waters, in full bloom. From this circumstance they gave it the name of Osh-ke-bug-e-sebe, denoting "New Leaf River," which name it has retained among the Ojibways to the present day.
A few years after the incursion of No-ka to the Minnesota River, the Ojibways again collected a war party of one hundred and twenty men, and under the leadership of Ke-che-waub-ish-ashe (Great Marten) a noted warrior, who acted as the war chief of Bi-aus-wah, they embarked in their canoes, and floated down the Mississippi, which they had now learned to make their chief and favorite war course. On their way down the river, the leader every morning deputed a canoe of scouts to proceed some distance in advance of the main body, to search for signs of the enemy, and runners were sent ahead by land, to follow down each bank of the river, to prevent a surprise of the party from an ambuscade of the enemy. Guarded in this manner from any sudden surprise, the Ojibway warriors quietly floated down with the current of the great river. On this occasion they had reached a point a short distance above the mouth of Elk River, when the scouts in the foremost canoe, as they were silently paddling down, hugging the eastern bank of the Mississippi, immediately below an extensive bottom of forest trees, heard loud talking and laughing in the Dakota language, on the bank
