upper James River. In 1844, Kittson started building a trading post at Pembina, which would allow Sibley's Upper Mississippi Outfit to trade with the Ojibwe and the Métis. Many Métis and Ojibwe hunters from the north were willing to make illegal trips across the international border to get higher prices for their fur pelts than what the British would pay. From Pembina, Kittson sent large trains of carts along the "Plains Trail" west of the Red River and down the Minnesota valley, well-defended against possible attacks by Dakota hunters who were resentful of the whole slaughter of buffalo by the Métis and had threatened to stop any goods from going across their country to the north. After the death of Joseph Renville in 1846, young Canadian fur trader Martin McLeod took responsibility for trade at Lac qui Parle, Big Stone Lake, and further west on the Dakota plains, freeing Kittson from having to collect furs there. Kittson then started trying out a shorter route from the Upper Red River to Lake Minnewaska, then along the Crow and Sauk Rivers to the Mississippi, and Sibley himself visited the area in 1847. Provisions for British troops Both the Hudson's Bay Company, and Ramsay Crooks, who still controlled what remained of the American Fur Company, were angered by increasing competition from Sibley and Kittson. In August 1846, 350 British troops arrived in the Red River settlement, in response to the Hudson's Bay Company's call for help to put an end to further smuggling. Ironically, the Hudson's Bay Company quickly found that they lacked enough provisions to supply the British forces and had to send buyers overland to the Mississippi to purchase supplies. As they ran into further problems in shipping their provisions up the Red River, Henry Sibley graciously offered his assistance. From this time onward, Sibley and Kittson proceeded to build a thriving business in supplying the British troops with everything from champagne to sheet iron stoves, transporting goods up the Red River Trail. Trade with the Dakota Sibley's trade with the western Dakota bands declined sharply in the 1840s. In 1844, a measles epidemic led to a decline in the number of Dakota hunters, and the dwindling population of elk, buffalo and other game forced the remaining hunters to push westward. In 1844 and 1845, bad weather and prairie fires temporarily drove the buffalo into the James River valley, but in