Volume 1

132 ACCIDENT—RUMORS OF WAR—DISPUTE.
seduce him away. I found that Desmarais had been visited
during my absence by a party of Saulteurs from Portage
la Prairie, who proposed to return with their famihes to
their own land during the winter, and had come thus far
ahead to see if there were any danger. The Indians from
the hills also had been in with a few beaver skins and some
d^pouilles ;
they had seen no Sioux, contrary to our appre-
It was themselves who
hension when we saw the smoke.
had made it, by accident. My men had nearly finished cutting
their firewood ; they had made a number of traps and
been very successful, particularly in taking raccoons and
foxes. My sick man was much better ; but another had
split his thumb with an ax in a shocking manner, and
having neglected it, the wound was in a sad condition.
I washed it with sal ammoniac until it bled, when the poor
fellow was dancing with pain, and swore he would rather
have it cut off.
Desmarais told me the Indians were forming a war-party
below us, near the Bois Perce, where several of them are
tented. Langlois' Indians, and some of mine, were to be
joined by a party of Crees and Assiniboines, who were to
assemble at my establishment at the mountain, very soon.
I did not like this news, being apprehensive they would
trouble our people there, and, perhaps, even pillage them.
This evening a warm dispute between Desmarais and the
men arose, concerning their trapping. It seemed that the
former had encroached on the latter's premises—that is, he
had set a line of traps on the same track, and within a few
hundred yards of a line they had previously made ; this
they considered as an infringement upon their rights, and
swore they would break his traps if he continued to
lengthen his tracks. The dispute was getting serious, when
they proposed to refer it to me. I soon put an end to
their argument by telling them that this time I would pass
over what had been said, but, in the future, the first one
who raised a dispute about rights and privileges would be
deprived of the liberty of visiting his traps, and so, if they