eserve peace among these quarrelsome and
thieving tribes, their favorite game being to steal each other's horses.
The Indian method of caring for their horses in the cold winter was
to let them shift for themselves during the day, and to take them into
their own lodges at night where they were fed with the juicy, brittle
twigs of the cottonwood tree. With this spare fodder the animals thrive
and keep their coats fine and glossy.

Late in November, a collision between the Sioux and the Mandans became
almost certain, in consequence of the Sioux having attacked a small
hunting party of the Mandans, killing one, wounding two, and capturing
nine horses. Captain Clark mustered and armed twenty-four of his men,
crossed over into the Mandan village and offered to lead the Indians
against their enemies. The offer was declined on account of the deep
snows which prevented a march; but the incident made friends for white
men, and the tidings of it had a wholesome effect on the other tribes.

"The whole religion of the Mandans," like that of many other savage
tribes, says the journal, "consists in the belief of one Great Spirit
presiding over their destinies. This Being must be in the nature of a
good genius, since it is associated with the healing art, and 'great
spirit' is synonymous with 'great medicine,' a name applied to
everything which they do not comprehend. Each individual selects for
himself the particular object of his devotion, which is termed his
medicine, and is either some invisible being, or more commonly some
animal, which thenceforward becomes his protector or his intercessor
with the Great Spirit, to propitiate whom every attention is lavished
and every personal consideration is sacrificed. 'I was lately owner of
seventeen horses,' said a Mandan to us one day, 'but I have offered them
all up to my medicine and am now poor.' He had in reality taken all his
wealth, his horses, into the plain, and, turning them loose, committed
them to the care of his medicine and abandoned them forever. The horses,
less religious, took care of themselves, and the pious votary travelled
home on foot."

To this day, all the Northwest Indians speak of anything that is highly
useful or influential as "great medicine."

One cold December day, a Mandan chief invited the explorers to join them
in a grand buffalo hunt. The journal adds:--

"Captain Clark with fifteen men went out and found the Indians engaged
in killing buffalo. The hu