, parties of the Tetons appeared from time to
time upon the river banks, following the boats, begging, threatening,
doing everything in their power to harass the advance. No doubt they
had already repented of their brief show of decency, and would have
made an open demonstration had they dared. Through those days the men
generally encamped upon islands or sand-bars in mid-stream, deeming it
wise to avoid further contact with the tribe. It was a decided relief
to get beyond their territory.

On October 10th they reached the land of the Ricaras, a tribe whose
conduct, in all domestic and foreign relations, was in striking
contrast to that of the Sioux, and indeed almost unique. The Ricaras
could not be induced to drink whiskey!

Soon after the arrival at the Ricara villages, one of the privates was
tried by court-martial for some act of insubordination, and was
sentenced to be publicly whipped. The execution of the sentence
"affected the Indian chief very sensibly, for he cried aloud during the
punishment." When the matter was explained to him, "he acknowledged
that examples were necessary, and that he himself had given them by
punishing with death; but his nation never whipped even children from
their birth." Universal sobriety, and compassionate tears from the eyes
of a warrior! Surely, that tribe was curious.

By the last of October the travelers came to the camps of the Mandans
and Minnetarees, 1600 miles from St. Louis; and there, being warned by
the calendar and by cold, they prepared to take up winter quarters.
Their first care was to find a suitable place for building log cabins
and fortifications. With this work the men were engaged until November
20th, when Fort Mandan was completed and occupied.

Meanwhile, the officers had sought to extend acquaintance among the
Indians, and to establish confidence and bring them into sympathy with
the new conditions of government. So far as pledges were concerned,
they were fairly successful; the Indians received them hospitably.

The Mandans had once been a powerful nation, living in numerous
villages down the river; but continued wars with the Sioux, coupled
with sad ravages of the small-pox, had reduced them to an insignificant
number, and compelled them to remove out of easy reach of their
strongest enemies. When Lewis and Clark came upon them, they formed
only a trifling souvenir of their past grandeur; they had then but two
poor villages at this remote site, where