reader must understand that the animal better
known as the prairie-dog is meant; and the mule-deer, as the explorers
called it, was not a hybrid, but a deer with very long ears, better
known afterwards as the black-tailed deer.

At the Big Bend of the Missouri, in the heart of what is now South
Dakota, while camped on a sand-bar, the explorers had a startling
experience. "Shortly after midnight," says the journal, "the sleepers
were startled by the sergeant on guard crying out that the sand-bar was
sinking, and the alarm was timely given; for scarcely had they got off
with the boats before the bank under which they had been lying fell in;
and by the time the opposite shore was reached, the ground on which they
had been encamped sunk also. A man who was sent to step off the distance
across the head of the bend, made it but two thousand yards, while its
circuit is thirty miles."

The next day, three Sioux boys swam the river and told them that two
parties of their nation, one of eighty lodges, and one of sixty lodges,
were camped up the river, waiting to have a palaver with the white
explorers. These were Teton Sioux, and the river named for them still
bears that title.

Chapter V -- From the Tetons to the Mandans

"On the morning of September 25th," says the journal, "we raised a
flagstaff and an awning, under which we assembled, with all the party
parading under arms. The chiefs and warriors, from the camps two miles
up the river, met us, about fifty or sixty in number, and after smoking
we delivered them a speech; but as our Sioux interpreter, M. Durion, had
been left with the Yanktons, we were obliged to make use of a Frenchman
who could not speak fluently, and therefore we curtailed our harangue.
After this we went through the ceremony of acknowledging the chiefs, by
giving to the grand chief a medal, a flag of the United States, a laced
uniform coat, a cocked hat and feather; to the two other chiefs, a
medal and some small presents; and to two warriors of consideration,
certificates. The name of the great chief is Untongasabaw, or
Black Buffalo; the second, Tortohonga, or the Partisan; the third,
Tartongawaka, or Buffalo Medicine; the name of one of the warriors was
Wawzinggo; that of the second, Matocoquepa, or Second Bear. We then
invited the chiefs on board, and showed them the boat, the air-gun, and
such curiosities as we thought might amuse them. In this we succeeded
too well; for, after giving them