quaws.'

... "They promised to make peace with the Otoes and Missouris, the only
nations with whom they are now at war. All these harangues concluded by
describing the distress of the nation; they begged us to have pity on
them; to send them traders; they wanted powder and ball, and seemed
anxious that we should supply them with some of their Great Father's
milk, the name by which they distinguished ardent spirits."

These were the Yanktons, one of the important tribes of the great Sioux
nation. The Yanktons have always been known to the whites as a people
of distinction, shrewd, artful, good hunters, good fighters, and
altogether quite able to take care of themselves. In their inmost
hearts, they were vain of their prestige amongst their inferior
neighbors; nor did they really acknowledge the superiority of the
whites. Their speeches must be taken as declarations of momentary
policy, and not of fixed principles. Further, they did not express the
thought of the tribe as a whole, but only the inclinations of those
chiefs who were for the time in authority, and whose word was for that
time the tribal law. The bearing of the Yanktons, as of almost every
other Indian tribe, has been modified or altogether changed, time and
again, under the will of successive chiefs.

The attention of the expedition was not wholly engrossed with the
Indians. From day to day the journals are filled with careful and
valuable notes upon the natural history and physical geography of the
land, about which nothing had as yet been written. Under the date of
September 7th there occurs a good description of the prairie-dog; and
on the 17th the antelope of the Western plains was described. Both of
these animals were then unknown to science.

September 25th the party walked close to the edge of catastrophe, when
they met with another tribe of the Sioux,--the Tetons. This was the
first occasion for an exhibition of the fighting temper of the men. In
describing the encounter, Captain Clark's journal is as usual
picturesque and graphic:--

"Envited the Chiefs on board to show them our boat & such curiossities
as was strange to them, we gave them 1/4 a glass of whiskey which they
appeared to be verry fond of, sucked the bottle after it was out & soon
began to be troublesom, one the 2d chief assumeing Drunkness, as a
Cloaki for his rascally intentions. I went with those chiefs (which
left the boat with great reluctiance) to shore with a view of
recons