immediately pulled to shore and
landed. On approaching the savages, however, the latter showed evident
symptoms of alarm, spreading out their arms horizontally, according to
their mode of supplicating clemency. The reason was soon explained. They
proved to be two chiefs of the very war party that had brought Messrs.
Crooks and M'Lellan to a stand two years before, and obliged them
to escape down the river. They ran to embrace these gentlemen, as if
delighted to meet with them; yet they evidently feared some retaliation
of their past misconduct, nor were they quite at ease until the pipe of
peace had been smoked.

Mr. Hunt having been informed that the tribe to which these men belonged
had killed three white men during the preceding summer, reproached them
with the crime, and demanded their reasons for such savage hostility.
"We kill white men," replied one of the chiefs, "because white men
kill us. That very man," added he, pointing to Carson, one of the new
recruits, "killed one of our brothers last summer. The three white men
were slain to avenge his death."

Their chief was correct in his reply. Carson admitted that, being with a
party of Arickaras on the banks of the Missouri, and seeing a war party
of Sioux on the opposite side, he had fired with his rifle across. It
was a random shot, made without much expectation of effect, for the
river was full half a mile in breadth. Unluckily it brought down a
Sioux warrior, for whose wanton destruction threefold vengeance had been
taken, as has been stated. In this way outrages are frequently committed
on the natives by thoughtless or mischievous white men; the Indians
retaliate according to a law of their code, which requires blood
for blood; their act, of what with them is pious vengeance, resounds
throughout the land, and is represented as wanton and unprovoked;
the neighborhood is roused to arms; a war ensues, which ends in the
destruction of half the tribe, the ruin of the rest, and their expulsion
from their hereditary homes. Such is too often the real history of
Indian warfare, which in general is traced up only to some vindictive
act of a savage; while the outrage of the scoundrel white man that
provoked it is sunk in silence.

The two chiefs, having smoked their pipe of peace and received a few
presents, departed well satisfied. In a little while two others appeared
on horseback, and rode up abreast of the boats. They had seen the
presents given to their comrades