By October the Indians had scattered to their hunting-grounds like leaves to the wind. The ice thickened. By November the islands were ice-locked and snow had drifted waist-high through the forests. The voyageurs could still fish through ice holes for food; but where was young Jean who was to bring up provisions from Michilimackinac? The commander did not voice his fears; and his men were too deep in the wilds for desertion. One afternoon, a shout sounded from the silent woods, and out from the white-edged evergreens stepped a figure on snowshoes—Jean de la Vérendrye, leading his boatmen, with the provisions packed on their backs, from a point fifty miles away where the ice had caught the canoes. If the supplies had not come, the explorer could neither have advanced nor retreated in spring. It was a risk that De la Vérendrye did not intend to have repeated. Suspecting that his merchant partners were dissatisfied, he sent Jemmeraie down to Montreal in 1733 to report and urge the necessity for prompt forwarding of all supplies. With Jemmeraie went the Jesuit Messaiger; but their combined explanations failed to satisfy the merchants of Montreal. De la Vérendrye had now been away three years. True, he had constructed two fur posts and sent East two cargoes of furs. His partners were looking for enormous wealth. Disappointed and caring nothing for the Western Sea; perhaps, too, secretly accusing De la Vérendrye of making profits privately, as many a gentleman of fortune did,—the merchants decided to advance provisions only in proportion to earnings. What would become of the fifty men in the Northern wilderness the partners neither asked nor cared.
Young Jean had meanwhile pushed on and built Fort Maurepas on Lake Winnipeg; but his father dared not leave Fort St. Charles without supplies. De la Vérendrye's position was now desperate. He was hopelessly in debt to his men for wages. That did not help discipline. His partners were not only withholding supplies, but charging up a high rate of interest on the first equipment. To turn back meant ruin. To go forward he was powerless. Leaving Jemmeraie in command, and permitting his eager son to go ahead with a few picked men to Fort Maurepas on Lake Winnipeg, De la Vérendrye took a small canoe and descended with all swiftness to Quebec. The winter of 1634-1635 was spent with the governor; and the partners were convinced that they must either go on with the venture or lose all. They consented to continue supplying goods, but also charging all outlay against the explorer.
Father Aulneau went back with De la Vérendrye as chaplain. The trip was made at terrible speed, in the hottest season, through stifling forest fires. Behind, at slower pace, came the provisions. De la Vérendrye reached the Lake of the Woods in September. Fearing the delay of the goods for trade, and dreading the danger of famine with so many men in one place, De la Vérendrye despatched Jemmeraie to winter with part of the forces at Lake Winnipeg, where Jean and Pierre, the second son, had built Fort Maurepas. The worst fears were realized. Ice had blocked the Northern rivers by the time the supplies had come to Lake Superior. Fishing failed. The hunt was poor. During the winter of 1736 food became scantier at the little forts of St. Pierre, St. Charles, and Maurepas. Rations were reduced from three times to once and twice a day. By spring De la Vérendrye was put to all the extremities of famine-stricken traders, his men subsisting on parchment, moccasin leather, roots, and their hunting dogs.
He was compelled to wait at St. Charles for the delayed supplies. While he waited came blow upon blow: Jean and Pierre arrived from Fort Maurepas with news that Jemmeraie had died three weeks before on his way down to aid De la Vérendrye. Wrapped in a hunter's robe, his body was buried in the sand-bank of a little Northern stream, La Fourche des Roseaux. Over the lonely grave the two brothers had erected a cross. Father and sons took stock of supplies. They had not enough powder to last another month, and already the Indians were coming in with furs and food to be traded for ammunition. If the Crees had known the weakness of the white men, short work might have been made of Fort St. Charles. It never entered the minds of De la Vérendrye and his sons to give up. They decided to rush three canoes of twenty voyageurs to Michilimackinac for food and powder. Father Aulneau, the young priest, accompanied the boatmen to attend a religious retreat at Michilimackinac. It had been a hard year for the youthful missionary. The ship that brought him from France had been plague-stricken. The trip to Fort St. Charles had been arduous and swift, through stifling heat; and the year passed in the North was one of famine.
Accompanied by the priest and led by Jean de la Vérendrye, now in his twenty-third year, the voyageurs embarked hurriedly on the 8th of June, 1736, five years to a day from the time that they left Montreal—and a fateful day it was—in the search for the Western Sea. The Crees had always been friendly; and when the boatmen landed on a sheltered island twenty miles from Fort St. Charles to camp for the night, no sentry was stationed. The lake lay calm as glass in the hot June night, the camp-fire casting long lines across the water that could be seen for miles. An early start was to be made in the morning and a furious pace to be kept all the way to Lake Superior, and the voyageurs were presently sound asleep on the sand. The keenest ears could scarcely have distinguished the soft lapping of muffled paddles; and no one heard the moccasined tread of ambushed Indians reconnoitring. Seventeen Sioux stepped from their canoes, stole from cover to cover, and looked out on the unsuspecting sleepers. Then the Indians as noiselessly slipped back to their canoes to carry word of the discovery to a band of marauders.
[Illustration: "The soldiers marched out from Mount Royal.">[
Something had occurred at Fort St. Charles without M. de la Vérendrye's knowledge. Hilarious with their new possessions of firearms, and perhaps, also, mad with the brandy of which Father Aulneau had complained, a few mischievous Crees had fired from the fort on wandering Sioux of the prairie.
"Who—fire—on—us?" demanded the outraged Sioux.