- Zeal Of A Botanist.- Adventure Of Mr.
Bradbury With A Ponca Indian.
-Expedient of the Pocket Compass
and Microscope.- A Messenger From Lisa.- Motives for Pressing
Forward.
WHILE Mr. Hunt and his party were sojourning at the village of
the Omahas, three Sioux Indians of the Yankton Alma tribe
arrived, bringing unpleasant intelligence. They reported that
certain bands of the Sioux Tetons, who inhabited a region many
leagues further up the Missouri, were near at hand, awaiting the
approach of the party, with the avowed intention of opposing
their progress.
The Sioux Tetons were at that time a sort of pirates of the
Missouri, who considered the well freighted bark of the American
trader fair game. They had their own traffic with the British
merchants of the Northwest, who brought them regular supplies of
merchandise by way of the river St. Peter. Being thus independent
of the Missouri traders for their supplies, they kept no terms
with them, but plundered them whenever they had an opportunity.
It has been insinuated that they were prompted to these outrages
by the British merchants, who wished to keep off all rivals in
the Indian trade; but others allege another motive, and one
savoring of a deeper policy. The Sioux, by their intercourse with
the British traders, had acquired the use of firearms, which had
given them vast superiority over other tribes higher up the
Missouri. They had made themselves also, in a manner, factors for
the upper tribes, supplying them at second hand, and at greatly
advanced prices, with goods derived from the white men.
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