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Show 136 THE CALIFORNIA AND OREGON TRAIL. come an established custom with them to go to the camp of every party, as it arrives in succe sion at the fort, and demand a feast. Smoke's village had come with this express design, having made several days' journey with no other object than that of enjoying a cup of coffee and two or three biscuits. So the ' feast' was demanded, and the emigrants dared not refuse it. One evening, about sunset, the village was deserted. We met old men, warriors, squaws, and children in gay attire, trooping off to the encampment, with faces of anticipation ; and, arriving here, they seated themselves in a semicircle. Smoke occupied the centre, with his warriors on either hand; the young men and boys next succeeded, and the squaws and children formed the horns of tho crescent. Tho biscuit and coffee were most promptly di patched, the emigrants staring open-mouthed at their savage guests. With each emigrant party that arrived at Fort Laramie thi scene was renewed; and every day the Indians grew more rapacious and presumptuous. One evening, they broke to pieces, out of mere wantonness, the cups from which they had been fea ted ; and this so exasperated the emigrants, that many of them seized their rifles and e;ould scarcely be restrained from firing on the insolent mob of Indians. Before we left the country this dangerous spirit on the part of the Dahcotah had mounted to a yet hio·her pitch. They began openly to threaten the emiarant with des- . 0 truct10n, and actually fired upon one or two parties of whites. A military force and military law are urgently called for in that perilous region '· an d un1 e ss troops are speedt· ly statw· ned at Fort Laramie, or elsewhere in the neighborhood both the . ' em1arants and other tr 11 .11 . . v ave ers Wl be exposed to most Immi-nent risks. SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE. 137 The Ogillallah, the Brule, and the other western bands of the Dahcotah, are thorough savages, unchanged by any contact with civilization. Not one of them can speak an European tongue, or has ever visited an American settle1nent. Until within a year or two, when the emjgrants began to pass through their country on the way to Oregon, they had seen no whites except the handful employed about the Fur Company's posts. They esteemed them a wise people, inferior only to themselves, living in leather lodges, like their own, and subsisting on buffalo. But when the swarm of Meneaska, with their oxen and wagons, began to invade them, their astonishment was unbounded. They could scarcely believe that the earth contained such a multitude of white men. Their wonder is now giving way to indignation ; and the 1·esult, unless vigilantly guarded against, may be lamentable in the extreme. But to glance at the interior of a lodge. Shaw and I used often to visit them. Indeed we spent most of our evenings in the Indian village; Shaw's assumption of the medical character giving us a fair pretext. As a sample of the rest I will describe one of these visits. The sun had just set, and the horses were driven into the corral. The Prairie Cock, a noted beau, came in at the gate with a bevy of young girls, with whom he began a dance in the area, leading them round and round in a circle, while he jerked up fi·om his chest a succession of monotonous sounds, to which they kept time in a rueful chant. Outside the gate, boys and young men were idly frolicking; and close by, looking grimly upon them, stood a warrior in his robe, with his face painted jet-black, in token that he had lately taken a Pawnee scalp. Passing these, the tall dark lodges rose between us and the red western sl{y. We repaired at once to the lodge of |
