who proposed to follow him prepared their rations, moccasins, bows and arrows. The evening before their departure, the chief, at the head of his soldiers, performed his farewell dance at every lodge; everywhere he received a piece of tobacco or some other present. If they take any women prisoners on these expeditions, they carry them to camp and hand them over to their wives, mothers and sisters. These women immediately butcher them with their hatchets and knives, vomiting upon the poor wretches, in their frantic rage, the most crushing and outrageous language. " Oh! Blackfoot bitches," they cry: " If we could only eat the hearts of all your young ones, and bathe in the blood of your cursed nation! " a
Never in my life have I enjoyed so many consolations as during my stay among these good Flatheads and Pend d'Oreilles; the Lord has amply compensated for all the privations and sufferings that I had endured in this long and laborious journey. I have spoken further back of having found a deputation from these two tribes at the rendezvous on Green river. Those good Indians had come to meet me to serve as an escort in this country, so dangerous to travel. Our meeting was not that of strangers, but of friends; it was like children running to meet their father after a long absence. I wept with joy at embracing them, and they also, with tears in their eyes, welcomed me with tenderest expressions. With a truly patriarchal simplicity, they told me all the little news of their nation, their almost miraculous preservation in a fight between sixty of their warriors and 2oo Blackfeet, a fight that lasted five days, and in which they had killed fifty of their enemies without losing a single man. "We fought like brave men," they told me, "in the desire to see you; the Great Spirit took pity on us, he helped us to remove dangers from the path that is to lead you to our camp. The Blackfeet will not trouble us again
a For omitted portion of the letter, see p. 989.