This Was
The Same Who Had Attempted To Stop Us In 1804; And Being
Now Less Anxious About Offending So
Mischievous a tribe,
Captain Clark told them that they had been deaf to our councils,
had ill-treated us two
Years ago, and had abused all the whites
who had since visited them. He believed them, he added, to be
bad people, and they must therefore return to their companions;
for if they crossed over to our camp we would put them to death.
They asked for some corn, which Captain Clark refused;
they then requested permission to come and visit our camp,
but he ordered them back to their own people. He then returned,
and all our arms were prepared, in case of an attack; but when
the Indians reached their comrades, and informed their chiefs
of our intention, they all set out on their way to their own camp;
though some of them halted on a rising ground and abused us
very copiously, threatening to kill us if we came across.
We took no notice of this for some time, till the return of three
of our hunters, whom we were afraid the Indians might have met.
But as soon as they joined us we embarked; and to see what
the Indians would attempt, steered near their side of the river.
At this the party on the hill seemed agitated; some set out
for their camp, others walked about, and one man walked toward
the boats and invited us to land. As he came near, we recognized
him to be the same who had accompanied us for two days in 1804,
and was considered a friend of the whites.
"Unwilling, however, to have any intercourse with these people,
we declined his invitation, upon which he returned to the hill,
and struck the earth three times with his gun, a great oath among
the Indians, who consider swearing by the earth as one of the most
solemn forms of imprecation. At the distance of six miles we
stopped on a bleak sand-bar, where we thought ourselves secure from
any attack during the night, and also safe from the mosquitoes.
We had made but twenty-two miles, but in the course of the day
had killed a mule-deer, an animal we were very anxious to obtain.
About eleven in the evening the wind shifted to the northwest,
and it began to rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning,
after which the wind changed to the southwest, and blew with such
violence that we were obliged to hold fast the canoes, for fear
of their being driven from the sand-bar: still, the cables of two
of them broke, and two others were blown quite across the river;
nor was it till two o'clock that the whole party were reassembled,
waiting in the rain for daylight."
The party now began to meet white men in small detachments
coming up the river. On the third of September, for example,
they met the first men who were able to give them news of home.
This party was commanded by a Mr. James Airs (or Ayres), from Mackinaw,
by the way of Prairie du Chien and St. Louis.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 194 of 201
Words from 106536 to 107070
of 110166
