without bread, vegetables, or salt, and, according to Penecaut, thriving
marvellously, though the surrounding wilderness was buried five feet deep
in snow.

Band after band of Sioux appeared, with their wolfish dogs and their sturdy
and all-enduring squaws burdened with the heavy hide coverings of their
teepees, or buffalo-skin tents. They professed friendship and begged for
arms. Those of one band had blackened their faces in mourning for a dead
chief, and calling on Le Sueur to share their sorrow, they wept over him,
and wiped their tears on his hair. Another party of warriors arrived with
yet deeper cause of grief, being the remnant of a village half exterminated
by their enemies. They, too, wept profusely over the French commander, and
then sang a dismal song, with heads muffled in their buffalo-robes.
[Footnote: This weeping over strangers was a custom with the Sioux of that
time mentioned by many early writers. La Mothe-Cadillac marvels that a
people so brave and warlike should have such a fountain of tears always at
command.] Le Sueur took the needful precautions against his dangerous
visitors, but got from them a large supply of beaver-skins in exchange for
his goods.

When spring opened, he set out in search of mines, and found, not far above
the fort, those beds of blue and green earth to which the stream owes its
name. Of this his men dug out a large quantity, and selecting what seemed
the best, stored it in their vessel as a precious commodity. With this and
good store of beaver-skins, Le Sueur now began his return voyage for
Louisiana, leaving a Canadian named D'Eraque and twelve men to keep the
fort till he should come back to reclaim it, promising to send him a
canoe-load of ammunition from the Illinois. But the canoe was wrecked, and
D'Eraque, discouraged, abandoned Fort l'Huillier, and followed his
commander down the Mississippi. [Footnote: In 1702 the geographer De l'Isle