Chapter 26For the most part, I was successful in keeping my people from joining the raiders. But shortly before the winter set in, something happened to incite the inhabitants of Rivers Bend to near rebellion. I had sent Little Moccasins and two of his contemporaries north to seek out the trader who had sold me peat for a number of years. I had learned about the slow-burning fuel from Otter. We had no local source, but Canada, to the north of us, had large fields. While it did not burn as hot as wood, it lasted longer, and its usage helped conserve what few plants survived in this largely treeless territory.
The party left late in October with one man driving a wagon I’d traded for only a week earlier. I urged my friend to hurry on his mission as I feared an early and hard winter. For a p
