ans would have despised La Verendrye as a
coward for refusing to revenge himself upon the Sioux for the death of
his son; but they knew that, whatever his reason might be, it was not
due to any fear of the Sioux. As time went on, they thought that he
would perhaps change his mind, and again and again they came to him
begging for leave to take the war-path. 'The blood of your son,' they
said, 'cries for revenge. We have not ceased to weep for him and for
the other Frenchmen who were slain. Give us permission and we will
avenge their death upon the Sioux.'

La Verendrye, however, disregarding his personal feelings, knew that it
would be fatal to all his plans to let the friendly Indians have {47}
their way. An attack on the Sioux would be the signal for a general
war among all the neighbouring tribes. In that case his forts would be
destroyed and the fur trade would be broken up. In the end, he and his
men would probably be driven out of the western country, and all his
schemes for the discovery of the Western Sea would come to nothing. It
was therefore of the utmost importance that he should remain where he
was, in the country about the Lake of the Woods, until the excitement
among the Indians had quieted down and there was no longer any
immediate danger of war.

At length, in the summer of 1738, La Verendrye felt that he could carry
out his plan of visiting the Mandans. He left one of his sons, Pierre,
in charge of Fort St Charles, and with the other two, Francois and
Louis, set forth on his journey to the West. Travelling down the
Winnipeg river in canoes, they stopped for a few hours at Fort
Maurepas, then crossed Lake Winnipeg and paddled up the muddy waters of
Red River to the mouth of the Assiniboine, the site of the present city
of Winnipeg, then seen by white men for the first time. La Verendrye
found it occupied by a band of Crees under two war chiefs. He landed,
{48} pitched his tent on the banks of the Assiniboine, and sent for the
two chiefs and reproached them with what he had heard--that they had
abandoned the French posts and had taken their furs to the English on
Hudson Bay. They replied that the accusation was false; that they had
gone to the English during only one season, the season in which the
French had abandoned Fort Maurepas after the death of La Jemeraye, and
had thus left the Crees with no other means of getting the goods they
required. 'As long as the French remain on our lands,'