inspected.
The sharp air thrilled and filled them with new vigour.
No wonder the Sioux were never still. The ozone of
the Arctic was in their veins, the sweeping winds drove
them, the balsamic prairie was their bed, the sky their
canopy. They never shut themselves up in stuffy mud
huts, as did the Mandans; they lived in tents. Unrestrained,
unregenerate, there was in them the fire of the
Six Nations, of King Philip and of Pontiac. Tall, handsome,
finely formed, agile, revengeful, intelligent, capable,—they
loved their country and they hated strangers.
So did the Greeks. An effeminate nation would have
fallen before them as did the Roman before the Goth, but
in the Anglo-Saxon they met their master.
"Whoop-ah-ho-o-oh!"
As anticipated, Black Buffalo and his pirate band were on the hills. Whether that fierce cry meant defiance or greeting no man could tell.
"Whoop-ah-ho-o-oh!"
The whole band rushed down to the shore, and even out into the water, shouting invitations to land, and waving from the sand-banks.
But too fresh in memory was the attempt to carry off Captain Clark. Jubilant, hopeful, and full of the fire of battle as the white men were, yet no one wished to test the prowess of the Sioux.
Unwilling to venture an interview, the boats continued on their way. Black Buffalo shook his war bonnet defiantly, and returning to the hill smote the earth three times with the butt of his rifle, the registration of a mighty oath against the whites.
Leaving behind them a wild brandishing of bows, arrows, and tomahawks, and an atmosphere filled with taunts, insults, and imprecations, the boats passed out of sight.
Wafted on the wind followed that direful "Whoop-ah-ho-o-oh!" ending with the piercing shrill Indian yell that for sixty years froze the earliest life blood of Minnesota and Dakota.
Here in the land of the Teton Sioux was to be planted the future Fort Rice, where exactly sixty year
