! If you desire to be avenged, go farther on! You
will find a camp of Frenchmen, among whom is the son of the white
chief!"

The _voyageur_ was at once unbound, and scouts scattered to find the
white men. Night had passed before the scouts had carried news of Jean
de la Verendrye's men to the marauding warriors. The ghostly gray of
dawn saw the _voyageurs_ paddling swiftly through the morning mist from
island to island of the Lake of the Woods. Cleaving the mist behind,
following solely by the double foam wreaths rippling from the canoe
prows, came the silent boats of the Sioux. When sunrise lifted the
fog, the pursuers paused like stealthy cats. At sunrise Jean de la
Verendrye landed his crews for breakfast. Camp-fires told the Indians
where to follow.

A few days later bands of Sautaux came to the camping ground of the
French. The heads of the white men lay on a beaver skin. All had been
scalped. The missionary, Aulneau, was on his knees, as if in morning
prayers. An arrow projected from his head. His left hand was on the
earth, fallen forward, his right hand uplifted, invoking Divine aid.
Young Verendrye lay face down, his back hacked to pieces, a spear sunk
in his waist, the headless body mockingly decorated with porcupine
quills. So died one of the bravest of the young nobility in New France.

The Sautaux erected a cairn of stones over the bodies of the dead. All
that was known of the massacre was vague Indian gossip. The Sioux
reported that they had not intended to murder the priest, but a
crazy-brained fanatic had shot the fatal arrow and broken from
restraint, weapon in hand. Rain-storms had washed out all marks of the
fray.

In September the bodies of the victims were carried to Fort St.
Charles, and interred in the chapel. Eight hundred Crees besought M.
de la Verendrye to let them avenge the murder; but the veteran of
Malplaquet exhorted them not to war. Meanwhile, Fort St. Charles
awaited the coming of supplies from Lake Superior.

IV

1736-1740

A week passed, and on the 17th of June the canoe loads of ammunition
and supplies for which the murdered _voyageurs_ had been sent arrived
at Fort St. Charles. In June the Indian hunters came in with the
winter's hunt; and on the 20th thirty Sautaux hurried to Fort St.
Charles, to report that they had found the mangled bodies of the
massacred Frenchmen on an island seven leagues from the fort. Again La
Verendrye had to choose wheth