The missionaries now proceeded to re-establish peace, in which they were so successful that the calumet was duly passed from one to another through the whole assembly. Before the close of the council the terms of a new alliance were fully settled, and all parties pledged to fidelity in maintaining it, and diligence in seeking the lost maiden.
Muttered threats were breathed against the Northwest Company, and especially its false commander, and a determination to take his life vehemently expressed. The missionaries reproved these threats so sternly that they were accused of befriending him, and the trapper was again obliged to exert all his influence in quelling the rising distrust.
Meanwhile, preparations for a grand banquet, after the most approved and bountiful mode of savage magnificence, had been going on, and the village was redolent of savory odors from every variety of meat and vegetables in process of cooking according to the Indian fashions.
The great assemblage regaled themselves plentifully, but with staid decorum. The mirth, the dancing, and the songs, customary upon such occasions, were omitted, out of respect for the memory of the departed chief and the sorrows of his son.
At the close of the feast, the Rosary was recited by the missionaries and their converts; after which the parties who were to set out in quest of the maiden were duly organized and equipped with arms and ammunition, procured for the purpose from the nearest American station. These were so dispersed as to surround by a long circuit the principal trading post of the Northwest Company—at which the commander made his headquarters—and draw towards it by narrowing circles, to intercept any party which might be sent to convey the object of their search to some other place should news of their expedition reach the post before their arrival. A runner accompanied each party to notify the next of any important incident touching the interests of their expedition.
As they were patiently and gradually converging toward their destination, one detachment met a party of traders from the Hudson's Bay Company, who informed them that the "Northwester" whom they sought was absent.
He had failed to meet them, as he had agreed, to arrange terms of requital with them for plunder committed upon their territory by his agents; and had departed a day or two before, with a fleet of canoes and a large party of voyageurs, down the river to an American station which was commanded by a former partner in his company, with whom he was on terms of suspicious intimacy, considering their rival interests.
There were a number of women in the canoes, supposed to be the wives of the voyageurs.
This intelligence changed the course of the expedition. The several bands were notified, and united as speedily as possible, to make their way to the station indicated.