turned back down the river, in search of my courser, and he was found safe and sound at the foot of a bluff too steep for him to climb; otherwise he would have got to the woods and that would have been the last of him. The deckhands brought him on board again.
Three days were required to bring our quadrupeds into tractable shape. One of the mules showed himself nothing less than bull-headed, and revolted whenever the bridle was passed over his long ears. After several attempts, all of them fruitless, the driver, to punish the balky animal and get a little respite himself, left him the bridle, but took away the bit; the mule appeared satisfied and the driver had no further need to resort to the whip to keep him quiet.
May 21st. I left the Yankton agency, together with the good chief Pananniapapi and his band. My little caravan was composed of a Sioux interpreter, a guide, a horse herder and a hunter. For seven miles, the route lay across an elevated country, through lovely smiling prairies,
slightly rolling. Then we came down on the bottom-lands, the valley proper of the Missouri. There the Yankton chief called Iron Horn and his little band have some cultivated fields. I gave baptism to all the little children. Six miles farther on, at the Sentier de boil d prone, [Prow-wood Landing?] I baptized several others. We had much difficulty in crossing the muddy stream opposite Fort Randall: all the baggage had to be carried to the farther bank on men's shoulders; all arms were required to help the two mules and the horse pull the empty wagon out of the sticky mud. Three miles farther, on the bank of the Missouri and on the land of the chief Magaska, or Swan, we camped for the night, at a distance of seventeen miles from our starting-point.
May 22d. I regenerated in the holy waters of baptism a half-breed family, father, mother and seven children, who had prepared themselves several years before to obtain this favor. The parents received the sacrament of marriage, according to the Roman ritual. Seventy-four children of