If, as seems likely, the brothers La Verendrye saw
only the Black Hills, these ten unknown men were the discoverers
of the Rocky Mountains.
Saint-Pierre braced himself to set out for the distant goal but
he was easily discouraged. Niverville, he said, was ill; the
Indians were at war among themselves; some of them were plotting
what Saint-Pierre calls "treason" to the French and their
"perfidy" surpassed anything in his lifelong experience. The
hostile influence of the English he thought all-pervasive.
Obviously these are excuses. He did not like the task and he
turned back. As it was, he tells a dramatic story of how Indians
crowded into Fort La Reine in a threatening manner and how he
saved the fort and himself only by rushing to the magazine with a
lighted torch, knocking open a barrel of powder, and threatening
to blow up everything and everybody if the savages did not
withdraw at once. He was eager to leave the country. In 1752 he
handed over the command to St. Luc de la Come and, in August of
that year, having experienced "much wretchedness" on his
journeys, he was safely back in Montreal.
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