The streams that flow into the Missouri and Mississippi from the westward are notoriously fickle and changeable.  Within a very few years, some of them have changed their course so that farms are divided into two parts, or are nearly wiped out by the wandering streams.  In at least one instance, artful men have tried to steal part of a State by changing the boundary line along the bed of the river, making the stream flow many miles across a tract around which it formerly meandered.  On this boundary line between the Sioux and their upper neighbors, the party met a band of Cheyennes and another of Ricaras, or Arikaras.  They held a palaver with these Indians and reproached the Ricara chief, who was called Gray-eyes, with having engaged in hostilities with the Sioux, notwithstanding the promises made when the white men were here before.  To this Gray-eyes made an animated reply:—­

“He declared that the Ricaras were willing to follow the counsels we had given them, but a few of their bad young men would not live in peace, but had joined the Sioux and thus embroiled them with the Mandans.  These young men had, however, been driven out of the villages, and as the Ricaras were now separated from the Sioux, who were a bad people and the cause of all their misfortunes, they now desired to be at peace with the Mandans, and would receive them with kindness and friendship.  Several of the chiefs, he said, were desirous of visiting their Great Father; but as the chief who went to the United States last summer had not returned, and they had some fears for his safety, on account of the Sioux, they did not wish to leave home until they heard of him.  With regard to himself, he would continue with his nation, to see that they followed our advice. . . . . . . . . .

“After smoking for some time, Captain Clark gave a small medal to the Chayenne chief, and explained at the same time the meaning of it.  He seemed alarmed at this present, and sent for a robe and a quantity of buffalo-meat, which he gave to Captain Clark, and requested him to take back the medal; for he knew that all white people were ‘medicine,’ and was afraid of the medal, or of anything else which the white people gave to the Indians.  Captain Clark then repeated his intention in giving the medal, which was the medicine his great father had directed him to deliver to all chiefs who listened to his word and followed his counsels; and that as he (the chief) had done so, the medal was given as a proof that we believed him sincere.  He now appeared satisfied and received the medal, in return for which he gave double the quantity of buffalo-meat he had offered before.  He seemed now quite reconciled to the whites, and requested that some traders might be sent among the Chayennes, who lived, he said, in a country full of beaver, but did not understand well how to catch them, and were discouraged from it by having no sale for them when caught.  Captain Clark promised that they should be soon supplied with goods and taught the best mode of catching beaver.