to the great risk of their guests, the young leader noted some of the first symptoms of the fatal effect of the influence of the whites on the once simple and manly natives. At a dinner of a semi-civilized description, the Sioux chief gave Pike the pipe of peace, telling him that it would insure his friendly reception among the "upper bands" of his tribes, and begging him to try and bring about peace between his people and the Minnesota Indians of the East.
Thanking his host for the pipe of peace, the power of which had already been proved by his French predecessors on the Mississippi, and promising to do his best with the Minnesotas, Pike pursued his way, between hilly country and prairies dotted with the encampments of the Sioux, till he came to the mouth of the majestic Chippeway on the east, succeeded, a few miles further up, by the yet more beautiful Minnesota, or St. Peters River, on the west.
The explorers were now approaching the summit of the central table land of the North American continent, where, 1,680 feet above the sea-level, are situated the sources alike of the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, and the Red River of the North, the three great arteries, bound, the first for the Atlantic Ocean, the second for the Gulf of Mexico, and the third for Hudson's Bay. As the common home of the infant streams was neared, the navigation of the Mississippi became more difficult, the river between the mouth of the Minnesota and the Falls of St. Anthony consisting of a series of rapids dashing over huge rocks encumbering the bed of the stream. Pike persevered, however, in his work of navigation, his little bark experiencing many a narrow escape in its passage between the frowning precipices, until the Falls themselves were reached, when he was compelled to leave his own boat and take to small canoes.
For four miles above the Falls, in the grandeur of which Pike owned himself a little disappointed, all went well, but the remainder of the trip was fraught with difficulties and dangers of every description. Again and again the travelers were compelled to disembark, and wading through the water, often not a foot above the rocks, drag their boats after them, while every now and then some wild Sioux warrior would appear upon the beetling heights shutting in the now restricted Father of Waters, and brandish his spear above the heads of the defenseless whites.
On the 4th October the mouth of the Crow River was passed on the west, and the first signs of dangers of a new description were noted in the wrecks,
