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Well, one day Black Dog, one of the most powerful chiefs of the Dacotas, rode into the fort with twenty of his braves. Just as he came in, Queen May, as we all called her, came galloping up on her mustang, and leapt like a bird from her saddle at the door of the commander's house, where her father was standing.
Many of the more northern nations, as the Dacotas, for example, have a custom, that, when the husband deceases, his widow immediately manifests the deepest mourning, by putting off all her finery, and dresses herself in the coarsest Indian attire, the sackcloth of Indian lamentation.
The rest of us didn't stop, you bet; we just gave a cheer and on we went, and the Dacotas got a lesson that day as they will remember as long as they are a tribe. Their horses were so dead-beat they had scarcely a gallop in them, while ours were fresh, and I don't think ten of the varmints got away.
In this was placed the counter, a piece of bone or iron about the size of a half a crown, and one of the players shuffled it about, the others in turn guessing where it was. The game of "moccasin" was but a modification of this game. As described by Philander Prescott three moccasins were used in this game by the Dacotas.
For a time the man lay like dead, but under a shower of blows he showed signs of consciousness, and finally, discharging from his mouth the bean, or whatever it was that the chief had thrown at him, he came to life. In other tribes, for example, the Ojebways, Winnebagoes, and Dacotas or Sioux, the instrument by which the candidate is apparently slain is the medicine-bag.
The Dacotas, or Sioux, frequented the riverain lands, in the southern region watered by the great flood. Thus interpreters were needed by the natives, who wished to parley from either bank of the Mississippi, each speaking one of two mother-tongues, both distinct from those of the Hurons and Algonquins, much of the latter being familiar to Joliet and others of the party.
Rube and me arrived half an hour later, just as the soldier who had escaped had come in and was telling how it all came about. "It war a terrible scene, I can tell you; the Captain he were nigh mad with grief, and the men were boiling over with rage. If they could have got at the Dacotas then they would have fought if there had been twenty to one against them.
You may hate them, you may say they are a cussed lot of rascals and thieves, but there ain't no despising them, and any one as does that is sure to have cause to repent it, sooner or later. There was the less reason with the Dacotas, for they had cut up stronger bodies of troops than there was at Fort Charles without letting a soul escape.
The Sioux or Dacotas, are a numerous, powerful and warlike nation of Indians, who have been appropriately called the Arabs of the west. Between them and the Sacs and Foxes, there has existed, from the settlement of the two latter tribes on the waters of the Mississippi, a hostility of feeling that has kept them embroiled in a constant warfare.
On the morning of the day after we had started a scout had arrived with the news that a strong war-party of Dacotas were on their way to the settlements. Captain White at once mounted half his infantry on horses, and with them and the cavalry set out in pursuit, leaving the fort in charge of a young officer with twenty-four men.
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