At early dawn they came across the two Chippeway canoes. Fastening to each a long strip of buffalo hide, they easily towed them down the river.
It was pleasant paddling as the beautiful Minnesota twisted and turned in its broad and sunny valley. Cottonwood and willow bordered its banks, which rolled back in gentle slopes of pale green, dotted with tree clumps, to the broad prairie. Blooming wild rose vines crept close to the water which sparkled in the sunshine or reflected the tints of the sky.
At its mouth, where it emptied into the Mississippi, the Minnesota spread out around a great flat island.
"We will not beach our canoes here," said Hawk Eye. "Fearless Bear advised me to see the trader on that little island yonder. He is known to deal justly with the red men. The Sioux call him Walking Wind."
Running their own canoes gently up on the sandy beach, they pulled the empty Chippeway canoes a little further up on shore and looked about them.
"Come, we will go to the post," said Hawk Eye, pointing to a building made of native limestone, with shutters and doorways of wood painted white.
As the boys drew near, they noticed groups of Indians with their squaws and Canadian boatmen with pipes in their mouths, gathered in front of a great wing, which on entering they found to be the company store. Blankets, traps, sleigh bells, scarlet cloth, beads, silk handkerchiefs and earbobs lay spread upon long counters. On others, already sorted and packed for shipment, lay pelts of muskrat, fox, wolf, beaver and mink, together with skins of deer and hides of buffalo.
"You need not look for a gun," said Hawk Eye in a low voice, noticing that Raven Wing paid little attention to the display on the counters. "You already have Slow Dog's gun; it is a fine one. But you are in need of powder and bullets, as I am."
As he finished speaking, a white man of about thirty, tall and muscular, came forward and asked them in the Sioux language what they wanted.
Both boys held up their guns and answered that they wished ammunition for their weapons.