VIII “The Sioux! The Sioux!”
“What river is this, Dorion?” Captain Lewis had thrown open his infantry uniform to catch the cooling gust down a silver rift in the shore.
“Petite Rivière des Sioux. Go to Des Moines country. Pass tro te Lake of te Spirit, full of islands. Lead to Dog Plain, Prairie du Chien, four days from te Omaha country. Des Sioux—”
Dorion drew his forefinger across his throat and lapsed into silence. They were his people, he would not traduce them. But his listeners understood,—the Sioux were “cut-throats,” this was their name among the tribes.
The voyageurs trembled, “Bon Dieu! le Sioux sauvage, he keel de voyageur an’ steal deir hair!”
The Sioux, the terrible Sioux, were dog Indians, ever on the move, raiding back and forth, restless and unsleeping. Almost to Athabasca their travoises kicked up the summer dust, their dog trains dragged across the plains of Manitoba. On the Saskatchewan they pitched their leather tents and chased the buffalo; around Lake Winnipeg they scalped the Chippeways. At the Falls of St. Anthony they spread their fishing nets, and at Niagara Falls the old French Jesuits found them.
Now they were stealing horses. For horses, down the Mississippi they murdered the Illinois. For horses, the Mandan on the upper Missouri heard and trembled. “The Sioux! the Sioux!” The Ponca paled in his mud hut on the Niobrara, the Omaha retreated up the Platte, the Cheyenne hid in the cedar-curtained recesses of the Black Hills.
More puissant than the Six Nations of the Iroquois, the Sioux Confederacy dominated from the Red River of the North to the Red River of Texas. Wilder than the Comanches they rode, more cunning in theft than the Crows, more bloodthirsty than the Blackfeet. On the red man’s triple plea for war,—horses, scalps, and wives,—the Sioux were pirates of the streams and despots of the prairie.
Mettlesome with the bow, fiery in battle, strong, brave, wild, kings of the hills and monarchs of the trails, they ruled the earth in splendid savagery. The buffalo was theirs, the beaver and the deer, and woe betide the rival that poached on their preserves. Did the poor Shoshone venture beyond the Rockies, he was flayed and burned alive. No lake, no stream, no river between the Mississippi and the Rockies remained unstained by their red hatchet.
And what a chapter when the traders came! Unwritten yet are those days of fierce and constant battle.
Even Dorion himself dreaded the daring freebooters into whose tribe he had married. His own offspring partook of the wild fierce spirit of their people. Like eaglets or young panthers, they clutched at him with claws and talons,—with difficulty the little Frenchman held them back as the lion-tamer holds the whelps.
Of Dorion’s possessions the Sioux took what they pleased. For the privilege of trading he smiled and gave them all, then in generosity he was heaped with skins. Dorion knew the Sioux, knew their best and worst. Somewhere in this Sioux country his faithful spouse was waiting; he was looking for her now,—a model squaw, a tireless slave who dug his roots and made his garments, brought his wood and water, and, neglected, bore his children.
“Pilicans! pilicans!”
It was the voice of Patrick Gass, beyond the Little Sioux. A low sand island was covered with huge, white, web-footed beauties fishing in the chocolate Missouri.
When the scrimmage was over two handsome birds lay in the bateau, one, the queen of the flock, brought down by Lewis himself. She was a splendid specimen, six feet from tip to tip, pure white with a tinge of rose, and an enormous pouch full of fish under her bill.
“Out with the fish. Let us measure that pouch.”
Lewis’s enthusiasm was contagious. All hands gathered while he poured in water, five gallons.
“The average capacity is but two,” said Captain Clark. “We must preserve this trophy.”
To-day that beautiful bird, of strong maternal instincts, is the emblem of the State of Louisiana.
Again Lewis put the question, “What stream, Dorion?”
“Te Great Sioux! Two hundret mile to te Sioux Fall, an’ beyont—almost to St. Peters.”
A smile relaxed old Dorion’s leathern face,—
“Below te Fall, a creek from te cliffs of red rock. All Indian get te peace-pipe. No battle dere, no war.”
Of the famous red pipestone quarry old Dorion spoke, the beautiful variegated rock out of which resplendent Dakota cities should be built in the future.
“Te rock ees soft, cut it wit te knife, then hard and shining.”
All tribes, even those at war, could claim asylum at the red pipestone. The Sioux came, and the Pawnee, to camp on its banks and fashion their calumets. The soft clay pipes, hardened into things of beauty, were traded from tribe to tribe, emblems and signals of peace. Captain Lewis himself had one, bought in St. Louis, brought down from that quarry by some enterprising French trader.
“Buffalo! buffalo! buffalo!” A grand shout arose at sight of the surging herds. “Plaintee boofalo now,” said the voyageurs. Upon the led horses along shore, Clark and Joseph Fields dashed away for a first shot.
Again rejoicing cooks went hunting up the kettles, and the whole expedition paused a day for a grand hunt.
“Te Yankton Sioux!” joyfully announced old Dorion, as they neared the familiar chalk bluffs of “des rivière Jaques, tat go almost to te Red Rivière of te Winnipeg.” All over these streams old Dorion had trapped the beaver.
With Sergeant Pryor and another, Dorion set out for the Indian camp. The Yankton Sioux saw the white men approaching and ran with robes to carry them in state to camp.
“No,” answered the Sergeant, “we are not the commanders. They are at the boats.”
Dorion led the way to his wigwam. His polite old squaw immediately spread a bearskin for them to sit on. Another woman killed a dog, cut it up, and boiled it and gave it to them to eat, a token of friendship.
Forty clean and well-kept lodges were in this Yankton village, of dressed buffalo and elk skin, painted red and white and very handsome. And each lodge had a cooking apartment attached.
Under the Calumet bluffs the flag was flying when the Yankton Sioux came down in state and crossed the river to the council. The Yankton Sioux were reputed to be the best of their nation, and brave as any, with their necklaces of bear’s claws, paints, and feathers. They were kingly savages, dignified and solemn, with heads shaved to the eagle plume, and arrayed in robes wrought with porcupine quills.
With Dorion as interpreter Captain Lewis delivered the usual speech, and presented flags, medals, and a chief’s dress, a richly laced coat, cocked hat, and red feather. The ceremonious Indians withdrew to consider a suitable answer.
The next morning again the chiefs assembled, solemnly seated in a row with enormous peace-pipes of red stone and stems a yard long, all pointing toward the seats intended for Lewis and Clark.
But the great Indian diplomats did not hasten.
“Ha!”
Even the stoic Sioux could not refrain from an ejaculation of admiration as they half rose, pipe in hand, to gaze in awe and wonder as the white chiefs entered the council. No such traders ever came up the Missouri, no such splendid apparitions as the Red Head Chief and his brother, pink and white as the roses on the river Jaques.
Captain Lewis habitually wore his sunny hair in a queue; to-day it was loosened into a waving cataract, and Clark, slipping off his eelskin bag, let his red locks fall, a strange and wondrous symbol. No such red and gold had ever been seen in the Indian country. With pale berries they stained their porcupine quills, with ochre painted the buffalo lodges, with vermilion rouged their faces, but none like these growing on the heads of men!
Seating themselves with all due dignity, Lewis and Clark scarce lifted their eyes from the ground as the Grand Chief, Weucha, extended his decorated pipe in silence. A full hour elapsed before Weucha, slipping his robe to give full play to his arm, arose before them.
“I see before me my Great Father’s two sons. We very poor. We no powder, ball, knives. Our women and children at the village no clothes. I wish my brothers would give something to those poor people.
“I went to the English, they gave me a medal and clothes. I went to the Spanish, they gave me a medal. Now you give me a medal and clothes. Still we are poor. I wish you would give something for our squaws.”
Then other chiefs spoke. “Very poor. Have pity on us. Send us traders. We want powder and ball.”
Deadly as were the Sioux arrows,—one twang of their bowstring could pierce a buffalo,—yet a better weapon had crossed their vision. Firearms, powder, ball, fabulous prices, these problems changed Indian history.
Congratulating themselves on this favourable encounter with the dreaded Sioux, and promising everything, Lewis and Clark went forward with renewed courage.
More and more buffaloes dotted the hills, and herds of antelope, strange and new to science.
“I must have an antelope,” said Lewis.
At that moment he saw seven on a hilltop. Creeping carefully near, they scented him on the wind. The wild beauties were gone, and a similar flock of seven appeared on a neighbouring height.
“Can they have spanned the ravine in this brief time?”
He looked, and lo! on a third height and then a fourth they skimmed the hills like cloud shadows, or winged griffins of the fabled time, half quadruped and half bird.
“A cur’ous lill animal here, Captain,” said one of the hunters, handing him a limp little body. Its head was like a squirrel’s. Lewis stroked the long fine hair.
“What is it?”
Cruzatte, the bowman, paddle in hand, leaned over, peering with his one near-sighted but intelligent eye.
“Ha! ha! ha! le petit chien!” he laughed. “Live in te hole een te prairie. Leetle dog. Bark, yelp, yelp, yelp, like te squirrel. All over te countree, whole towns,” spreading his brown hands expressively.
After this lucid explanation the Captains, Lewis and Clark, set out for a prairie-dog town. A few yelps, heels in air, the town was deserted save for the tiny mounds that told where each had hidden.
“Let us drown one out.”
Forthwith, every man came puffing up with big brass kettles full of water.
“Five barrels,” says Clark in his journal, “were poured into the holes but not a dog came out,” and Patrick Gass adds, “Though they worked at the business until night they only caught one of them.”
More and more the hills were thronged with buffalo. Even York, Captain Clark’s black servant, went out and killed two at one ride.
On the top of a high bluff the men had found the skeleton of a huge fish, forty-five feet long and petrified.
“Blow, ye winds of morning,
Blow, blow, blow—”
George Shannon, the boy of the expedition, had enlivened many a sunrise with his jolly, rollicking Irish songs. But Shannon was lost! On the 28th of August he had gone out to look for the strayed horses. It was now September. Captain Lewis was wild, for at his request George had joined the expedition and at his order he had gone after the horses. Hunters had sought in every direction, guns had been fired and the blunderbuss, and smokes had been kindled from point to point.
“Shannon!” A great shout went up as the forlorn boy, emaciated and weary, came dragging into camp on the 11th of September.
It was a short story, soon told. He found the horses and followed by mistake the trail of recent Indians, which he mistook for footprints of the party. For days he followed the trail, exhausted his bullets, and lived on wild grapes and a rabbit he killed with a stick. But he heard no guns, saw no smoke.
In despair at last he came down to the river, to discover that all this time he had been travelling ahead of the boats! The fatted buffalo-calf was killed and great was the rejoicing, and at daylight next morning, Shannon’s
“Blow, ye winds of morning,
Blow, blow, blow,”
rang again joyously over the Missouri.
“Danger! Quick! The bank is caving!”
At one o’clock in the night the guard gave the startled cry. Barely was there time to loosen the boats and push into midstream before the whole escarpment dropped like an avalanche over the recent anchorage. Thus in one instant might have been blotted out the entire expedition, to remain for all time a mystery and conjecture.
On the evening of September 24 the cooks and a guard went ashore to get supper at the mouth of the river Teton, the present site of Pierre, South Dakota. Five Indians, who had followed for some time, slept with the guard on shore.
Early next morning sixty Indians came down from a Sioux camp and the Captains prepared for a council. Under the flag and an awning, at twelve o’clock the company paraded under arms. Dorion had remained behind at the Yankton village, so with difficulty, by the aid of Drouillard and much sign language, a brief speech was delivered. Black Buffalo, head chief, was decorated with a medal, flag, laced coat, cocked hat, and red feather, nor were the rest forgotten with smaller gifts, medals, and tobacco.
The Captains would have gone on, but, “No! No!” insisted Black Buffalo, seizing the cable of Clark’s departing pirogue.
Finally Clark and several of the men rowed them ashore. But no sooner had they landed than one seized the cable and held the boat fast. Another flung his arms around the mast and stood immovable.
“Release me,” demanded Clark, reddening at evidence of so much treachery.
Black Buffalo advanced to seize Clark. The Captain drew his sword. At this motion Captain Lewis, watching from the bateau, instantly prepared for action.
The Indians had drawn their arrows and were bending their great bows, when the black mouth of the blunderbuss wheeled toward them.
At this Black Buffalo ordered his men to desist, and they sullenly fell away, but never was forgotten that time when the Teton Sioux attempted to carry off Captain Clark.
“We wished to see the boat more,” said the Indians, by way of excuse. “We wished to show it to our wives and children.”
To conciliate and to depart without irritation, Captain Clark offered his hand. The chiefs refused to take it. Turning, Clark stepped into the boat and shoved off. Immediately three warriors waded in after him, and he brought them on board. That night the whole expedition slept under arms, with the Indians as guests. At daylight crowds of Indian men, women, and children waited on shore in the most friendly manner.
Ten well-dressed young men took Lewis and Clark up on a highly decorated robe and carried them up to the council tent. Dressed like dandies, seventy Indians sat in this roomy council hall, the tail feathers of the golden eagle scarce quivering in their topknots. Impressively in the centre on two forked sticks lay the long peace-pipe above a bed of swan’s down.
Outside, the redmen were roasting a barbecue. All day they sat and smoked, and ate of buffalo beef and pemmican. After sunset a huge council fire illuminated the interior of the great lodge, and the dance began. Wild Indian girls came shuffling with the reeking scalps of Omahas, from a recent raid. Outside twenty-five Omaha women prisoners and their children moaned in the chill of an icy autumn night. It was their trail that Shannon had followed for sixteen days.
About midnight, fatigued by the constant strain of watchful anxiety, the Captains returned to the boats. But not yet were they safely away. “To oars! to oars! the cable’s parted!”
The Indians heard the call.
“The Omahas! the Omahas!” rang the cry up from the Teton camp, that on every wind anticipated the whoop of retaliating Omahas in search of their stolen wives and children.
Then followed pandemonium of rushing Indians and frightened calls. All night, with strained eyes, every man held his rifle ready as they lay unanchored on the water.
At daylight the wily Indians held the ropes and still detained the boats. Resort to force seemed inevitable. Flinging a carat of tobacco, “Black Buffalo,” said Lewis, “you say you are a great chief. Prove it by handing me that rope.” Flattered, Black Buffalo gave the rope, and thankfully the boats pulled out with no more desire to cultivate the Sioux.