Ogallalas, the facts of whose case I have related in the Western 11Nlissions and Missionaries. This meeting was truly providential. I talked to him and his companions for about an hour. On leaving them I made them a little present of coffee, sugar and crackers, and I saw them depart with no further thought of attacking our camp.
Other travelers were less fortunate than we. Several steamboats that left St. Louis at about the same time as ours had to withstand sundry attacks from the savages, in which they lost several men. One large keelboat was sunk and all its crew destroyed. We understood better then that the war-cry was really ringing all along that river, over ~vhiclt our passage had been so quiet and peaceful.7
Let me add here a word concerning the Sioux of the Missouri river. Their habitations or buffalo-skin lodges number 3,ooo, each of which shelters eight to ten individuals, one-fifth of whom may be considered able to bear arms; they can consequently furnish 5,000 to 6,ooo warriors. Such is the fresh enemy that the Americans have drawn upon themselves by their numerous injustices. Volumes would be needed to contain them all - at present the hearts of the Sioux are full of vengeance and urge them to turbulence and carnage.
After a wait of four weeks at the mouth of Milk river - after having had my body poisoned and bloated by a plant, commonly called l'herbe d la puce (the Rhus Toxicodendron of the botanists) with which the soil of the forest was cov
7 The perils of navigation on this river in 1863 can hardly be overstated. The Sioux tribes were uncompromisingly hostile. General Sibley was carrying his successful campaign from bfinnesota to the Missouri. General Sully was moving up the east bank of the Tlissouri with a large force. The most constant vigilance was required by the boats to get through at all. A Mackinaw boat containing twenty-one rpen and three women was attacked at the mouth of Apple creek just before General Sibley arrived there and all the passengers killed. Captain La Barge with the Robert Campbell lost three men near Fort Berthold. Father De Smet does not represent the situation as bad as it actually was.