La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

254 THE ADVENTURES OF HENNEPIN. [1680.to sing for theiramusement, they conceived a favorableopinion of both alike.These Sioux, it may be observed, were the ancestorsof those who committed the horrible but notunprovoked massacres of 1862, in the valley of theSt. Peter. Hennepin complains bitterly of theirtreatment of him, which, however, seems to havebeen tolerably good. Afraid that he would lagbehind, as his canoe was heavy and slow, 1 theyplaced several warriors in it to aid him and his menin paddling. They kept on their way from morningtill night, building huts for their bivouac when itrained, and sleeping on the open ground when theweather was fair, — which, says Hennepin, " gave usa good opportunity to contemplate the moon andstars." The three Frenchmen took the precautionof sleeping at the side of the young chief who hadbeen the first to smoke the peace-pipe, and whoseemed inclined to befriend them; but there wasanother chief, one Aquipaguetin, a crafty old savage,who having lost a son in war with the Miamis, wasangry that the party had abandoned their expedition,and thus deprived him of his revenge. He thereforekept up a dismal lament through half the night;while other old men, crouching over Hennepin as helay trying to sleep,uttered wailings sostroked him with their hands, andlugubrious that he was forced to1And yet it had, by his account, made a distance of thirteenhundred and eighty miles from the mouth of the Mississippi upwardin twenty-four days 1