They manoeuvre as if they intend to hem in our phalanx, but at sight of our firm position and of the assurance of the captain, who advanced toward them, they checked their march, finally halted, and came to a parley, of which the result was that they should return to the American whatever they had taken from him, but that the blows which he had received should not be returned. After this, both parties united in smoking the calumet. This band consisted of eighty Cheyenne warriors, armed for battle?' The Cheyennes are looked upon as the bravest Indians on the prairie. They followed our camp for two or three days. As the chiefs were admitted to our meals, both parties separated with mutual satisfaction.
On another occasion we were in company with the vanguard of the Flatheads, and had penetrated into an impassable defile between the mountains, so that after having traveled the whole day, we were forced to retrace our steps. At night the rumor was spread that a party of Bannock Indians lay encamped in the neighborhood. The Bannocks had this very year killed several white men; but it soon appeared that they were more frightened than ourselves, for before daybreak they had removed from the place.
Without being aware of it, we had escaped a much greater danger on the banks of Green river. We did not know the particulars of this danger till after we had ar
rived at Fort Hall. There we heard that almost immedi
2t "There were only forty of them, but they were well mounted on horses, and were evidently a war-party, for they had no women except one, a medicine woman. They came up and camped within a hundred yards of us. When they had put up their lodges Fitzpatrick and John Gray, the old hunter, went out to them and by signs were made to understand that the Indians did not intend to hurt the man or take his mule or gun, but that he was so excited when he saw them that they had to disarm him to keep him from shooting them. They surrendered the mule and the gun, thus showing that they were friendly. They proved to be Cheyenne Indians. Ever afterward that man went by the name of Cheyenne Dawson."- Bidwell.