warn the scattered hunters in the vicinity, of danger, and collect them to their succor. In order to effect this plan, the ten hunters made a circuit and heading the Dakotas daring the night, while encamped, they crossed their course at right angles, and proceeded straight towards the trading house, judging that in the morning, when the war party fell across their tracks (as they would certainly do), they would eagerly follow them up. The hunters had marched all night, and were consequently several hours in advance of the enemy. These hours were employed by the trader and his people in strengthening the barriers around the house. The trees and logs were hauled by main force from around the wigwams, and piled on the defences, and the women, with the children (among whom was the narrator), were invited to take shelter within the house.
The Indian hunters, together with the trader and several "coureurs du bois," numbered nearly twenty men, capable of bearing arms in defence of the post, against a party judged, by the depth and size of their trail, to number two hundred warriors.
The preparations of the Ojibways and their white allies had hardly been completed, when the enemy made their appearance, on the opposite banks of the river. They leisurely made their usual preparations for battle by adorning their persons with paints, feathers, and ornaments; and relying on their numbers, they bravely crossed the stream on the ice, and commenced the attack on the trading house by discharging clouds of barbed arrows, accompanied with a terrific yelling of the war-whoop. Their comparatively harmless missiles were promptly answered with death-winged bullets, by the trader and his hunters, and such of the Dakotas as approached too near the wooden wall, suffered for their temerity.
The western, or prairie, Dakotas had not as yet generally
