them. The Assiniboines had in fact
already left on their journey, but the Frenchmen overtook them at their
first camp.

[Illustration: Tablet deposited by La Verendrye, 1743. Obverse and
reverse sides. From photographs lent by Charles N. Bell, F.R.G.S.,
President of the Manitoba Historical and Scientific Society.]

This latter part of the journey had its own excitements and perils. On
the last day of May, as they were travelling over the prairie, they
discovered a party of Sioux waiting in ambush. The Sioux had expected
to meet a smaller party, and now decided not to fight. At the same
time, they were too proud to run away before the despised Assiniboines,
even though they numbered only thirty and the Assiniboines numbered
more than a hundred. They retreated with dignified slowness, facing
around on the Assiniboines from time to time, and driving them back
when they ventured too near. But when they recognized the Frenchmen,
mounted on horses and armed with their deadly muskets, their attitude
changed; they {91} forgot their dignity and made off as fast as they
could go. Even with heavy odds against them these virile savages
managed to wound several of the Assiniboines, while they lost only one
man, who mistook the enemy for his friends and was captured. Pierre
and Francois La Verendrye finally reached Fort La Reine on July 2, to
the great delight of their father, who had grown anxious on account of
their long absence. They had been away from the fort for one year and
eighty-four days.

[1] This tablet remained buried where it was deposited for 170 years.
In March 1913 it was found by a young girl on the west bank of the
Missouri river opposite the city of Pierre, N. Dakota, thus bearing
testimony to the trustworthiness of Francois La Verendrye's journal,
from which this chapter was written before the tablet was discovered.
Photographs of the tablet were made by W. O'Reilly of Pierre and
published in the _Manitoba Free Press_ and are reproduced in this book
by courtesy of Charles N. Bell, F.R.G.S., of Winnipeg.

{92}

CHAPTER VI

LA VERENDRYES' LATTER DAYS

During all this time the elder La Verendrye had been working at other
plans for discovery and for trade in the Far West. In the year 1739,
on his return from the first visit to the Mandans, he had sent his son
Francois to build a fort on the Lake of the Prairies, now known as Lake
Manitoba. When young La Verendrye had built this fort, h