At the request of the elder Linctot he was relieved of the command opposite Maiden Rock, Lake Pepin, and in 1735 Legardeur Saint Pierre took command. In a communication dated twelfth of October, 1736, by the Canadian authorities, is the following:

In regard to the Scioux, Saint Pierre, who commanded at that post, and Father Guignas, the missionary, have written to Sieur de Beauharnois on the tenth and eleventh of last April, that these Indians appeared well intentioned toward the French, and had no other fear than that of being abandoned by

them. Sieur de Beauharnois annexes an extract of these letters, and although the Sioux seem very friendly, the result only can tell whether this fidelity is to be absolutely depended upon, for the unrestrained and inconsistent spirit which composes the Indian character may easily change it. They have not come over this summer as yet, but M. de la St. Pierre is to get them to do so next year, and to have an eye on their proceedings.

Upon the sixth of May, 1736, one hundred and forty Sioux arrived at the fort, and said they were taking back to the Puans a slave who had fled to them. Saint Pierre told them that he thought it was a large guard for one woman, and they then alleged that they were going to hunt turkeys to obtain feathers for their Continuing their journey down the Mississippi, they met and scalped two Frenchmen. When Saint Pierre was on a visit up the river to see about building another post, the lawless party returned, and for four days danced the scalp dance in the vicinity of the fort.

Two canoes of Saulteaux (Ojibways) arrived from La Pointe, Lake Superior, on the twenty-third of August, with letters. from Nolan, Legros and Bourassa, conveying the startling news that the Sioux of the Woods with a few of the Sioux of the Prairies had killed a number of Ver

endrye's exploring party, at the Lake of the Woods.

On the fifteenth of August, 1731, arrived at the Grand Portage, near Pigeon river, the northeastern extremity of Minnesota, on the shore of Lake Superior, Pierre Gualtier Varennes, the Sieur Verendrye (Verandrie), with an expedition in search of a route to the Pacific ocean. The second in command was his nephew, the brave youth, Christopher Dufrost, the Sieur de la Jemeraye, who for a time was in charge of Fort Beauharnois. During the autumn, by difficult portages, the Sieur de la Jemeraye and two sons of Verendrye reached Rainy lake, and established a trading post, called Fort St. Pierre.

About the middle of July, 1732, Fort St. Pierre was left, and the explorers ascended to the Lake of the Woods, where they erected Fort St. Charles. During the year 1733 the Sieur de la Jemeraye went to Montreal to attend to his uncle's business, and in the beginning of March a party, conducted by the eldest son of Verendrye, moved westward and established Fort Maurepas, near the entrance to Lake Winnepeg, which in September, 1735, was in charge of Sieur de la Jemeraye, who had returned, and during the following winter two sons of Verendrye remained there. During the spring of 1736 Jemeraye died at the post. Upon the eighth of June Auneau, the chaplain, and one of the sons of Verendrye, with some voyageurs, left the post on the shore of the Lake of the Woods to go to Mackinaw, and while encamped upon an island in the lake, seven leagues from Fort St. Charles, they were surprised by the Sioux,

and the whole party of twenty-one killed. Some days after, five voyageurs stopped at the island, and found the Jesuit chaplain, Auneau, with an arrow in his brain. The son of Verendrye was lying upon his back, and his flesh hacked by tomahawks. His head had been removed and was ornamented with garters and bracelets of porcupine quills.

The sixteenth of September there came to the Lake Pepin post ten Indians, three chiefs and two young slaves, bringing a quantity of beaver skins, which they delivered to Saint Pierre as a pledge of friendship, and declared that they had no part in the attack at the Lake of the Woods. They were then asked as to their knowledge of the killing of two Frenchmen on the Mississippi. The next day a chief came with three young men, one of whom wore in his ear a silver pendant. When asked by Saint Pierre how he obtained the ornament, he smiled but would not answer. The captain tore it from his ear, and found it was similar to those sold by the traders and placed him under guard. Thirty-six men and their families, on the eighteenth of December arrived, and passing the fort, visited some Puans (Winnebagoes) encamped in the vicinity. Ouakantape (Wah-kan-tah-pay) was the chief and quite insolent, and some of the party burned the pickets around the garden of Father Guignas, the chaplain.

The gates of the post were opened about eight o'clock of the morning of the twenty-fourth of January, 1737, to admit a wood cart, when some of the Sioux pushed in and defiantly behaved. Upon the twentieth of March thirty Sioux appeared from Fond du Lac Superior, where

they had scalped an Ojibway, his wife and child. The next May a war party of Ojibways came and wished the Puans to unite with them against the Sioux. While they were parleying, five Sioux came to the fort to trade, and were protected until night, when they were permitted to leave. An Ojibway lying in an ambush, who spoke Sioux, arose and asked "Who are you?" when the Sioux fired and escaped. In view of the hostility of the Indians, Saint Pierre, after conferring with Sieur Linctot, the second in command, Father Guignas and some others, on the thirteenth of May, 1737, burned the post, and descended the Mississippi.

Upon the eighteenth of June, 1738, the Sieur Verendrye left Montreal to continue his discoveries. He arrived at Fort Maurepas on the twenty-third of September and pushed on through Lake Winnipeg, to the mouth of the Assiniboine river, ascending which sixty leagues, on the third of October stopped and built Fort La Reine. A little while before, the eldest son of Verendrye built a post at the mouth of the Assiniboine and Red River of the North, which was soon abandoned. On a map of the tribes, rivers and lakes west of Lake Superior in 1737, appears Red Lake of Minnesota, the Red river, and the "Bois Fort," the Big Woods.

A few days after Fort La Reine was established, the Sieur de la Marque, whose family name was Marin, arrived with his brother desiring to visit the country of the Mandans.

The Foxes in 1740 again became troublesome, and the post on Lake Pepin was for a time abandoned by the French. A dispatch in 1741 uses this language:

The Marquis de Beauharnois' opinion respecting the war against the Foxes, has been the more readily approved by the Baron de Longeuil, Messieurs De la Chassaigne, La Corne, de Lignery, La Noue, and Duplessis-Fabert, whom he had assembled at his house, as it appears from all the letters that the Count has written for several years, that he has nothing so much at heart as the destruction of that Indian nation, which cannot be prevailed on by the presents and the good treatment of the French, to live in peace, notwithstanding all its promises.

Besides, it is notorious that the Foxes have a secret understanding with the Iroquois to secure a retreat among the latter, in case they be obliged to abandon their villages. They have one already secured among the Sioux of the prairies, with whom they are allied; so that, should they be advised beforehand of the design of the French to wage war against them, it would be easy for them to retire to the one or the other before their passage could be intersected or themselves attacked in their villages.

In the summer of 1743, a deputation of the Sioux came down to Quebec, to ask what trade might be resumed. Three years after this, four Sioux chiefs came to Quebec, and wished that a commandant might be sent to Fort Beauharnois, which was not granted.

During the winter of 1745-6, De Lusignan visited the Sioux country, ordered by the government to hunt up the coureurs des bois and withdraw them from the country. They started to return with him but learning that they would be arrested at Mackinaw, for violation of law, they ran away. While at the villages of the Sioux of the lakes and plains, the chiefs brought to this officer nineteen of their young men, bound with cords, who had killed three Frenchmen at the Illinois. While he remained with them they made peace with the Ojibways of La Pointe, with whom they had been at war for some time. On his return, four chiefs accom.

panied him to Montreal, to solicit pardon for their young braves.

The lessees of the trading post lost many of their peltries that winter in consequence of a fire.

In November, 1745, Legardeur de Saint Pierre, St. Luc de la Corne, Marin and his son left Montreal to attack the English settlements in New York. Passing Fort St. Frederick, at Crown Point, on the thirteenth of the month, by the twentyseventh the French and the Indians were at Fort Edward. On the next day they crossed Fish creek, a tributary of the Hudson, and the combined forces under the elder Marin attacked the settlement of Saratoga, killed Captain Philip Schuyler and many others, took sixty prisoners, and burned nearly all the houses. They then retraced their steps and on the seventh of December returned to Montreal. Upon the thirtieth of the same month Saint Pierre was sent again to Crown Point with a large force to surprise the frontier settlements of New York and New England. England. He passed the winter in alarming the English, and in April was again in Montreal. During the latter part of the next year he was sent to Mackinaw, whither he was accompanied by his brother Louis Legardeur, the Chevalier de Repentigny.

In 1749 the Sioux earnestly entreated the elder Marin* to use his influence with the governor of Canada to reestablish the

* Pierre Paul, son of Cæsar Marin and his wife, who was the daughter of De Callieres, governor of Canada, was born March 19, 1692, and from his youth was distinguished for his boldness and energy. He was married March 21, 1718, to Marie Guyon.