Volume 1

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EVIDENCE OF ANOTHER COLLISION WITH SIOUX. 361
them at least 12 months, without a supply of flesh or anything
else.
We every moment met women and children
loaded with produce, as we supposed to exchange with
their neighbors, so as to be provided with a variety of
articles. At two o'clock we regained our old quarters and
found the village in the same bustle as those above
women and children uncovering caches and filling bags,
repairing saddles, making and mending shoes and smocks,
cleaning and rubbing the leather with white earth. There
were no dogs to harass nor children to tease us, and the
natives were of mild, sociable, and affable disposition ; so
we found ourselves quite at home.
I walked out to see the remains of a great number of
Sioux—some say near 300 ; but I will not vouch for the
truth of this, as others say there were but 30 men killed.
This Sioux party, like the other, consisted of Yanktons and
Titons, whose object on this occasion was to destroy the
Mandanes
;
but the Big Bellies came to the assistance of
their neighbors, and a severe battle was fought on the level
plain between the village and the high bank. Both parties
were mounted, and victory was as often within the grasp
of the one as of the other, until
a considerable party of Big
Bellies, who were making haste to assist their friends, reenforced
by a party of Rocky Mountain, or Crow Indians,
who happened just then to arrive, all in a body rushed
toward the field of battle. Observing with what fury the
front was engaged, they determined to surround the enemy
by turning to the left without being observed, as the
country permitted this movement. They rode up a deep
valley, which brought them upon the hills so far away as
not to be in sight of the enemy. Keeping on the S. side
of those rising grounds, they went full speed into the valley
which led down to the rear of the enemy. There they fell
in with a great number of women, who had accompanied
their husbands, in full expectation of destroying the Mandanes
and plundering the village ; numbers of them were
instantly murdered, and others retained as prisoners. The