I shall take occasion in subsequent pages to speak of medicine-making, and would refer the reader to that part for an explanation of the peculiar purposes for which the medicine lodge is constructed.
The river at Chabonard's camp is reduced fully one half in width, compared with its size at the forks. The current is also clearer and more rapid. Its banks and islands are much better timbered, and its general appearance indicates an approach to the mountains.
About noon we bade farewell to our new friends, by whom we had been kindly entertained, and resumed our journey, accompanied by my whilom companion and two others, —increasing our number to six.
Towards sundown, coming to a small village of Chyennes, we passed the night in the lodge of a chief, called the Tall Soldier. Our host treated us with much civility, but in this he appeared actuated only by selfish motives, and with the sole view of extorting a more than fourfold equivalent by way of presents.
We were also continually harassed by beggars from all quarters, and gladly availed ourselves of the first dawn of the ensuing morning to pass on, and thus escape their importunities.
The Chyennes at this time occupy a portion of the Arapaho lands, bordering upon the South Fork and its affluents.
Some six or eight years since, they inhabited the country in the vicinity of the Chvenne and White rivers and the North Fork of Platte, from whence they were driven by the hostile incursions of the Sioux, who now hold in quiet possession the whole of that territory.
This tribe, in general appearance, dress, and habits, assimilates most of the mountain and prairie Indians, with the single exception, perhaps, of being meaner than any other. They are certainly more saucy as beggars and impudent and daring as thieves, than any other I ever became acquainted with.
Formerly they were a much better people, but the contaminating effects of intercourse with the whites have made a disposition, naturally bad, immeasurably worse. Contrary to Indian character in general, they are treacherous and unworthy of trust, at all times and in all places.
Their history contains a small speck of romance, which may not prove altogether uninteresting to the curious.
The Chyennes, at the present time, number about four hundred lodges, and claim some eight hundred warriors. The tribe is composed of two divisions, viz: the Chyennes and Gros Ventres, —both speaking the same language and practising the same designation of nationality, shown in sundry transverse scars upon the left arm.
Neither of these divisions know their origin, but tell the following curious story of their first intercourse with each other.
Many years since, the Chyennes, while travelling from a north country, discovered the Gros Ventres, who were also upon a journey. As usual among strange tribes, both parties rushed to the attack, and a bloody battle would undoubtedly have been the result, had it not been stayed by the mutual discovery of an identity of language. Upon this, hostility at once gave place
