CHAPTER III.
RETURN FROM THREE FORKS TO ST. LOUIS.
Affecting departure from the Flatheads-Across Bozeman Pass to the Yellowstone- Danger from prowling Indians - Meets a camp of the Crows - Two days' observations of that tribe - More Crows on the Big Horn-Their poor prospects in the next world-Flathead escort returns from first trading post-Alone with the grenadier in the desert-Fort Union - Mandan village -Geological curiosities-An account of the Aricaras - Medicine feats - Encounters with the Sioux -Their friendliness- Ten days in a canoe among floating iceCouncil Bluffs, Westport and St. Louis.
HE 27th of August [1840] was the day I had set for my departure. Seventeen warriors, selected braves of the two nations, stood early in the morning at the entrance to my lodge with three chiefs. The council of the elders had deputed them to serve as my escort for so long as I should find myself in the country of the Blackfeet and Crows, two nations so hostile to the whites,' that the first give them no quarter when they meet them, but massacre them in the cruelest manner; the second take from then' everything they have, strip them to the shirt and leave them in the desert to perish of hunger and misery; sometimes they grant them life but make them prisoners. Long before sunrise all the nation was assembled around my lodge; no one spoke, but grief was painted on each face. The only thing I could say that seemed to console them was a formal promise of a prompt return in the following spring, and of a reinforcement of several missionaries. I performed the morning prayers amid the weeping and sobs of those good
1 This is true of the Blackfeet but not of the Crows, who were always friendly to the whites, except that they never hesitated to rob them of horses..