or three
years the fire water--the Indian's curse--flowed like a flood. The
danger appealed to the traders, and from a policy of mere
self-protection they had decided to give out no strong drink, unless it
might be a slight allowance at Christmas and New Year's time. Red River
was now the central meeting place of four of the great Indian Nations.
The Red Pipestone Quarry down in the land of the Dakotas, and the Roches
Percees, on the upper Souris River, in the land of the wild Assiniboines
were sacred shrines. At intervals all the Indian natives met at these
spots, buried for the time being their weapons, and lived in peace. But
Red River, and the country--eastward to the Lake of the Woods--was
really the "marches" where battles and conflicts continually prevailed.
Red River, the Miskouesipi, or Blood Red River of the Chippewas and
Crees, was said to have thus received its name. Andrew McDermott knew
all the Indians as they drew near with curiosity, to see the settlers
and to speculate upon the object of their coming. The Indian despises
the man who uses the hoe, and when the Colonists sought thus to gain a
sustenance from the fertile soil of the field, they were laughed at by
the Indians who caught the French word "Jardiniers," or gardeners, and
applied it to them.

The Colonists were certainly a puzzle to the Red man. To the banks of
the Red River and to the east of Lake Winnipeg had come many of the
Chippewas. They were known on the Red River as Sauteurs, or Saulteaux,
or Bungays, because they had come to the West from Sault Ste. Marie,
thinking nothing of the hundreds of miles of travel along the streams.
They were sometimes considered to be the gypsies of the Red men. It was
they coming from the lucid streams emptying into Lake Superior and
thence to Lake Winnipeg, who had called the latter by its name "Win,"
cloudy or muddy, and "nipiy" water. When the Colonists arrived, the
leading chief of the Chippewas, or Saulteaux, was Peguis. He became at
once the friend of the white man, for he was always a peaceful, kindly,
old Ogemah, or Chieftain.

All the Indians were, at first, kindness itself to the new comers, and
they showed great willingness to supply food to the hungry settlers, and
to assist them in transfer and in taking possession of their own homes.

The Saulteaux Indians while active and helpful were really intruders
among the Crees, a great Indian nation, who in language and blood were
their relations. As