much at the skill of the white men, and at the strength of York, the Great Medicine. They admitted that these white men's houses were better even than the Mandan lodges—although the Mandan lodges were also of heavy timbers, plastered with earth, and banked with earth at the bottoms; had doors of buffalo hide, and fireplaces in the middle.
Mr. Jessaume, the French trader, moved to the camp, with his Mandan wife and child; and so did another French trader named Toussaint Chaboneau. He had two wives: one was very old and ugly, but the other was young and handsome. She was a Sho-sho-ne girl, from far-off. The Minnetaree Indians had attacked her people and taken her captive, and Chaboneau had bought her as his wife. She and the old wife did not get along together very well.
Mr. Jessaume and Chaboneau could speak the languages, and were hired by the captains to be interpreters for the camp.
"My young wife come from ze Rock mountains," said Chaboneau—who was a dark little man, his wrinkled face like smoked leather. "One time I was dere. I trade with Minnetaree."
"You never were over the mountains, Toussaint, were you?" asked Sergeant Pryor.
"Me, Monsieur Sergeant?" And Toussaint shuddered. "Ma foi (my word), no! It is not ze possible. Up dere, no meat, no grass, no trail, notting but rock, ice, cold, an' ze terrible savages out for ze scalp."
