. Pushing
a league up this stream, they found a spot well suited to their purpose,
and here they built a fort, of which there was great need, for they were
soon after joined by seven Canadian traders, plundered and stripped to
the skin by the neighboring Sioux. Le Sueur named the new post Fort
l'Huillier. It was a fence of pickets, enclosing cabins for the men. The
neighboring plains were black with buffalo, of which the party killed
four hundred, and cut them into quarters, which they placed to freeze
on scaffolds within the enclosure. Here they spent the winter,
subsisting on the frozen meat, without bread, vegetables, or salt, and,
according to Penecaut, thriving marvellously, though the surrounding
wilderness was buried five feet deep in snow.

Band after band of Sioux appeared, with their wolfish dogs and their
sturdy and all-enduring squaws burdened with the heavy hide coverings of
their teepees, or buffalo-skin tents. They professed friendship and
begged for arms. Those of one band had blackened their faces in mourning
for a dead chief, and calling on Le Sueur to share their sorrow, they
wept over him, and wiped their tears on his hair. Another party of
warriors arrived with yet deeper cause of grief, being the remnant of a
village half exterminated by their enemies. They, too, wept profusely
over the French commander, and then sang a dismal song, with heads
muffled in their buffalo-robes.[362] Le Sueur took the needful
precautions against his dangerous visitors, but got from them a large
supply of beaver-skins in exchange for his goods.

When spring opened, he set out in search of mines, and found, not far
above the fort, those beds of blue and green earth to which the stream
owes its name. Of this his men dug out a large quantity, and selecting
what seemed the best, stored it in their vessel as a precious commodity.
With this and good store of beaver-skins, Le Sueur now began his return
voyage for Louisiana, leaving a Canadian named D'Eraque and twelve men
to keep the fort till he should come back to reclaim it, promising to
send him a canoe-load of ammunition from the Illinois. But the canoe was
wrecked, and D'Eraque, discouraged, abandoned Fort l'Huillier, and
followed his commander down the Mississippi.[363]

Le Sueur, with no authority from government, had opened relations of
trade with the wild Sioux of the Plains, whose westward range stretched
to the Black Hills, and perhaps to the Rocky Mountains. He