Tablet deposited by La Vérendrye, 1743.
Obverse and reverse sides.
From photographs lent by Charles N. Bell, F.R.G.S.,
President of the Manitoba Historical and Scientific Society.
This latter part of the journey had its own excitements and perils. On the last day of May, as they were travelling over the prairie, they discovered a party of Sioux waiting in ambush. The Sioux had expected to meet a smaller party, and now decided not to fight. At the same time, they were too proud to run away before the despised Assiniboines, even though they numbered only thirty and the Assiniboines numbered more than a hundred. They retreated with dignified slowness, facing around on the Assiniboines from time to time, and driving them back when they ventured too near. But when they recognized the Frenchmen, mounted on horses and armed with their deadly muskets, their attitude changed; they forgot their dignity and made off as fast as they could go. Even with heavy odds against them these virile savages managed to wound several of the Assiniboines, while they lost only one man, who mistook the enemy for his friends and was captured. Pierre and François La Vérendrye finally reached Fort La Reine on July 2, to the great delight of their father, who had grown anxious on account of their long absence. They had been away from the fort for one year and eighty-four days.
[[1]] This tablet remained buried where it was deposited for 170 years. In March 1913 it was found by a young girl on the west bank of the Missouri river opposite the city of Pierre, N. Dakota, thus bearing testimony to the trustworthiness of François La Vérendrye's journal, from which this chapter was written before the tablet was discovered. Photographs of the tablet were made by W. O'Reilly of Pierre and published in the Manitoba Free Press and are reproduced in this book by courtesy of Charles N. Bell, F.R.G.S., of Winnipeg.