Le Borgne Added That His Ears Would Always Be Open
To The Words Of His Good Father, And Shut Against
Bad counsel.
Captain Clark then presented to Le Borgne the swivel, which he told
him had announced the words of
His Great Father to all the nations
we had seen, and which, whenever it was fired, should recall
those which we had delivered to him. The gun was discharged,
and Le Borgne had it conveyed in great pomp to his village.
The council then adjourned."
After much diplomacy and underhand scheming, one of the Mandan chiefs,
Big White, agreed to go to Washington with the expedition.
But none of the Minnetarees could be prevailed upon to leave
their tribe, even for a journey to the Great Father,
of whose power and might so much had been told them.
The journal, narrating this fact, says further: -
"The principal chiefs of the Minnetarees now came down to bid
us farewell, as none of them could be prevailed on to go with us.
This circumstance induced our interpreter, Chaboneau, to remain
here with his wife and child, as he could no longer be of use to us,
and, although we offered to take him with us to the United States,
he declined, saying that there he had no acquaintance,
and no chance of making a livelihood, and preferred remaining
among the Indians. This man had been very serviceable to us,
and his wife was particularly useful among the Shoshonees:
indeed, she had borne with a patience truly admirable the fatigues
of so long a route, encumbered with the charge of an infant,
who was then only nineteen months old.
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