The weather had grown much colder, with squalls of snow and sleet and
high winds; the wild geese were flying high, headed into the south; and
the river, falling rapidly, was split with bars and narrow channels,
when, two weeks after the punishment of John Newman, the barge and the
two pirogues anchored off the first of the Mandan villages, in the
centre of present North Dakota.
“Five long months we’ve been travelin’, an’ for sixteen hundred crooked
miles,” quoth Patrick Gass. “Sure we desarve a bit o’ rist. Now what
will the Mandans say, I wonder?”
“Did you see that young fellow who’d lost the halves of two fingers?”
queried George Shannon. “Well, he’d cut ’em off, on purpose, because
some of his relatives had died! That’s the Mandan way of going into
mourning.”
“’Twould be better to cut the hair, I’m thinkin’,” said Pat. “They most
of ’em nade it――an’ hair’ll grow again.”
The Mandans had swarmed aboard, and were examining every object
with much curiosity. They were an odd people, wrinkled and of low
stature――many of the women with brown hair, but others with gray hair
which flared almost to the ground. However, their voices were gentle,
and they brought gifts of corn and vegetables, in earthen jars.
Mr. Jessaume, a French trader among them, also came aboard; so did a
Scotchman named Hugh McCracken, from a British fur company post far
north.
“They’re frindly, be they, Pierre?” asked Pat, of One-eyed Cruzatte,
who was hobbling past after a lively conversation with Mr. Jessaume.
“Oui,” answered Cruzatte, with a grimace of pain. “I t’ink we stay an’
spen’ one winter. Dey glad. We protect’ dem ’gainst de Sioux. My poor
leg, he carry me not furder, anyway.”
For Cruzatte had the rheumatism in both knees. Reuben Fields was laid
up with the rheumatism in his neck; and Captain Clark had been so
bothered with a stiff neck that he could not move around until Captain
Lewis had applied a hot stone wrapped in red flannel.
“Hi!” cackled big York, strutting as usual. “Dese heah Mandans done gif
me name Great Medicine, Mistuh McCracken say. Dey wants me foh a chief.”
“There’s coal in the banks, yonder,” spoke George Shannon. “See it,
Peter?”
“What is coal?” ventured Peter.
“Black stuff, like a rock, that will burn.”
“It’ll make fine fuel for my forge,” put in John Shields, who was
clever at fashioning things out of metal. “Expect I’ll be busy all
winter, smithing, while you other fellows are hunting and dancing.”
The Mandan villages were three in number. There was a village
of Minnetarees, also; and a village of Ar-wa-cah-was and
Ah-na-ha-ways――Indians whom neither Drouillard nor Cruzatte knew.
“Ah, well, now, belike there be plenty Injuns on ahead, too, that ye
never heard of,” declared Pat. “Yis, an’ lots of other cur’osities
before we get to the Paycific Ocean.”
The head chief of all the Mandans was Pos-cap-sa-he, or Black Cat. The
chief of the lowest village was Sha-ha-ka, or Big White. The chief of the
second village was Raven Man. The chief of the Ar-wa-cah-was was White
Buffalo Robe. The chief of the Ah-na-ha-ways was Cherry-on-a-Bush, or
Little Cherry, but he was very old. The chief of the Minnetaree village
was Black Moccasin. And the chief of the upper Mandan village, across
from the Minnetaree village, was Red Shield.
The two captains met in council with all the villages together, and
smoked the pipe of peace and distributed gifts. During the speeches old
Cherry-on-a-Bush, the Ah-na-ha-way chief, rose to go, because, he said,
his son was on the war-trail against the Sho-sho-nes, or Snakes, and
his village was liable to be attacked.
“Shame on you, for an impolite old man,” rebuked Sha-ha-ka, Big White.
“Do you not know better than to show such bad manners before the chiefs
from the great white father?”
And poor Cherry-on-a-Bush sat down mumbling.
The Arikara chief who had come up on the barge was well received. The
Mandans promised to observe peace between the two nations.
“We did not begin the war,” they said. “We have been killing those
’Rees like we kill birds, until we are tired of killing. Now we will
send a chief to them, with this chief of theirs, and they can smoke
peace.”
Camp was made at a spot picked out by Captain Clark, across the river,
below the first Mandan village, and everybody not on guard duty was
set at work erecting winter quarters. Captain Clark had charge of the
camp, but Patrick Gass “bossed” the work. He was a carpenter. Axes
rang, trees were felled and under Patrick’s direction were trimmed and
notched, to form the walls and roofs of the cabins.
There were to be two rows of cabins, joined so as to make four rooms,
below, on each side, and four rooms above, entered by ladders. The
walls were of hewn logs tightly chinked with clay; and the ceilings,
seven feet high, were of planks trimmed with adzes――and covered with
grass and clay to make a warm floor for the lofts. The roofs slanted
inward, which made the outside of the rows eighteen feet high, so that
nobody could climb over. Every down-stairs room had a fire-place, and a
plank floor. The two rows met, at one end, and were open at the other;
and across this opening was to be stretched a high fence of close,
thick pickets, entered by a stout gate.
The Mandans and their Indian friends marveled much at the skill of
the white men, and at the strength of York, the Great Medicine. They
admitted that these white men’s houses were better even than the
Mandan lodges――although the Mandan lodges were also of heavy timbers,
plastered with earth, and banked with earth at the bottoms; had doors
of buffalo hide, and fireplaces in the middle.
Mr. Jessaume, the French trader, moved to the camp, with his Mandan
wife and child; and so did another French trader named Toussaint
Chaboneau. He had two wives: one was very old and ugly, but the other
was young and handsome. She was a Sho-sho-ne girl, from far-off. The
Minnetaree Indians had attacked her people and taken her captive, and
Chaboneau had bought her as his wife. She and the old wife did not get
along together very well.
Mr. Jessaume and Chaboneau could speak the languages, and were hired by
the captains to be interpreters for the camp.
“My young wife come from ze Rock mountains,” said Chaboneau――who was a
dark little man, his wrinkled face like smoked leather. “One time I was
dere. I trade with Minnetaree.”
“You never were over the mountains, Toussaint, were you?” asked
Sergeant Pryor.
“Me, Monsieur Sergeant?” And Toussaint shuddered. “Ma foi (my word),
no! It is not ze possible. Up dere, no meat, no grass, no trail,
notting but rock, ice, cold, an’ ze terrible savages out for ze scalp.”
The cabins were erected rapidly, for the cottonwood logs were soft
and easily split. The first trees were felled on November 3, and on
November 20 the walls were all in place. The men moved in before the
roofs were put on, but buffalo hides were stretched over.
The two captains occupied one cabin, at the head of the angle. And
six or seven men were assigned to each of the other cabins. Sergeant
Patrick Gass, Privates George Shannon, Reuben Fields and Joseph
Fields, who were great hunters, George Gibson, who played the violin,
John Newman, who now was no longer mutinous, but worked with a will,
and Peter formed one mess; Corporal Warfington and his six soldiers
from St. Louis formed another; Drouillard, the hunter, and five of
the French boatmen another; One-eyed Cruzatte and five other boatmen
another; and so forth. Jessaume and Chaboneau had erected their own
lodges.
It was high time that the cabins were completed. The weather turned
very cold and windy, and ice floated in the river. The roofs were
hastened, and the picket fence ought to be erected soon, for the
Mandans were not yet satisfied with the presence of the white men.
Black Cat and Big White were frequent visitors. One day after Black
Cat had spent the whole morning talking with the captains, Chaboneau
reported the bad news.
“Mebbe now dere is troubles,” he uttered, as he sat toasting his shins
at the fire in the Patrick Gass cabin. He had entered with a gay “Bon
soir (good evening), messieurs,” and had brought a draft of icy air
with him. “Mebbe now dere is troubles.”
“What’s the matter, Toussaint?”
“I interpret for ze Black Cat an’ ze captains. Ze Black Cat say ze
Sioux dey much enrage’, ’cause ze ’Rees make ze peace with ze Mandan.
Dey sen’ ze word dat someday dey come up an’ take ze scalp of all ze
’Ree an’ ze Mandan an’ ze white soldier. Dey sorry dey did not kill ze
white soldier down-river, for ze white soldier carry bad talk. Black
Cat fear. He fear mebbe ze ’Ree get scare’ an’ help ze Sioux, an’ he
been tol’, too, dat ze white soldiers build strong fort, to stay an’
try to make slaves of ze Mandan, an’ soon ze whole country he be Sioux.”
“That sounds like the British,” remarked George Shannon. “They
naturally don’t want the United States in here, taking away their
trade. They’d like to have us driven out.”
“An’ what did the captains say?” inquired Patrick Gass.
“Dey say Black Cat must not open hees ears to such talk,” answered
Toussaint. “Ze United States speak only truth, an’ if ze Mandan listen
ze white soldiers will protec’ dem ’gainst all deir enemies. Black Cat
say dere been a council held, on ze matter, an’ ze Mandan will wait an’
see.”
Much was yet to be done before the fort was secure. The barge ought
to be unloaded and its goods stored in the two store-cabins. The
men in the Gass cabin spent their time evenings braiding a large
rope of elk-skin, by which the barge might be hauled up on the bank,
farther out of the ice. Big White and Little Raven and other chiefs
and warriors brought meat, on the backs of their squaws. Big White’s
village was across the river, and he and his wife came over in their
buffalo-hide boat. She followed him to the fort, with 100 pounds
of meat at a time on her back. She was delighted with the gift of
a hand-ax, with which to cut wood for the lodge fire. The captains
presented the Mandan nation with an iron mill for grinding corn. This
pleased the women.
The weather turned warm, and Captain Lewis took a squad of men, to
pay a visit to the villages. Only one chief was unfriendly. He, named
Mah-pah-pa-pa-ra-pas-sa-too, or Horned Weasel, refused to see the
captain at all.
“And we know the reason why,” asserted Sergeant Pryor, who had been
along. “Seven traders of the British Northwest Company have just come
down with dog-sleds from the north country, and are giving out British
flags and medals and telling the chiefs we aren’t true men.”
When Mr. Francois Larocque, the captain of the traders, paid a visit
to the fort, Captain Lewis informed him very strongly that the United
States would not tolerate any flags and medals except those authorized
by the President. This was now United States territory.
This day Sergeant Pryor dislocated his shoulder while helping to take
down the mast of the barge.
Now cold weather set in again, and the river was closed by ice. The
snow fell for a day and a night, and lay thirteen inches deep. But
fortunately the roofs were on the cabins, the stone chimneys drew well,
and there was plenty of meat and dried corn.