ignantly, 'Who fire on us?' and
the Chippewas, in ambush, had yelled back with grim humour, 'The
French.' The Sioux {42} retreated, vowing a terrible vengeance against
the treacherous white men. Their opportunity came even sooner than
they had expected. A trader named Bourassa, who had left Fort St
Charles for Michilimackinac shortly before the setting out of Jean de
La Verendrye and his party, had camped for the night on the banks of
the Rainy river. The following morning, as he was about to push off
from the shore, he was surrounded by thirty canoes manned by a hundred
Sioux. They bound him hand and foot, tied him to a stake, and were
about to burn him alive when a squaw who was with him sprang forward to
defend him. Fortunately for him his companion had been a Sioux maiden;
she had been captured by a war party of Monsones some years before and
rescued from them by Bourassa. She knew of the projected journey of
Jean de La Verendrye. 'My kinsmen,' she now cried, 'what are you about
to do? I owe my life to this Frenchman. He has done nothing but good
to me. Why should you destroy him? If you wish to be revenged for the
attack made upon you, go forward and you will meet twenty-four
Frenchman, with whom is the son of the chief who killed your people.'

Bourassa was too much frightened to oppose {43} the statement. In his
own account of what happened he is, indeed, careful to omit any mention
of this particular incident. The Sioux released Bourassa, after taking
possession of his arms and supplies. Then they paddled down to the
lake, where they were only too successful in finding the French and in
making them the victims of the cruel joke of the Chippewas.

This murder of his son was the most bitter blow that had yet fallen
upon La Verendrye. But he betrayed no sign of weakness. Not even the
loss of his son was sufficient to turn him back from his search for the
Western Sea. 'I have lost,' he writes simply to Maurepas, 'my son, the
reverend Father, and my Frenchmen, misfortunes which I shall lament all
my life.' Some comfort remained. The great explorer still had three
sons, ready and willing like himself to sacrifice their lives for the
glory of New France.

[1] See _The 'Adventurers of England' on Hudson Bay_, pages 73-88.

{44}

CHAPTER III

ACROSS THE PLAINS

For several years La Verendrye had been hearing wonderful accounts of a
tribe of Indians in the West who were known as the M