the skeletons of various species of animals; among other things I found a big buffalo-skull, changed to stone as red as porphyry. I carried it a long way, but the trouble that this burden caused me, and the fatigue of the horses, who at that season of the year hardly found whereon to live, soon forced me to abandon it regretfully in the prairie, as I had been obliged to do before in the Black Hills and Rocky Mountains with all the other curiosities I had picked up.
We met on our way a war-party of fifteen Assiniboins, returning from a fruitless expedition against the Grosventres of the Missouri. It is chiefly on such occasions as this that it is dangerous to meet the savages. To come home without horses, prisoners, scalps, is for them the climax of dishonor and shame; accordingly they showed us much displeasure, and their looks were nothing if not sinister. These Indians are, however, cowards, and this particular band were poorly armed. I was accompanied by three men from the fort, who were going to the Aricaras with a herd of horses, and though we were only five, each of us laid his hand upon his weapon, assuming an air of determination, and we had a little talk with them and continued our route without being molested. The next day we passed through a forest on the banks of the Missouri which had been in 1835 the winter quarters of the Grosventres, Aricaras and Mandans; it was there that these unfortunate nations had been attacked by that epidemic, which, in the course of a year, made such ravages among the Indian tribes; several thousand of the savages died of smallpox. We observed in passing that the corpses, wrapped in buffalo hides, had remained bound to the branches of the largest trees. This savage burialground offered a very sad and mournful sight, and gave my traveling companions occasion to relate several anecdotes as deplorable as they were tragic. Two days later we came to the miserable remnants of these three unfortunate tribes. The Mandans, who to-day scarce number ten