“We were visited by two persons from the lower village:  one, the Big White, the chief of the village; the other, the Chayenne, called the Big Man:  they had been hunting, and did not return yesterday early enough to attend the council.  At their request we repeated part of our speech of yesterday, and put the medal round the neck of the chief.  Captain Clark took a pirogue and went up the river in search of a good wintering-place, and returned after going seven miles to the lower point of an island on the north side, about one mile in length.  He found the banks on the north side high, with coal occasionally, and the country fine on all sides; but the want of wood, and the scarcity of game up the river, induced us to decide on fixing ourselves lower down during the winter.  In the evening our men danced among themselves, to the great amusement of the Indians.”

It may be said here that the incident of a life saved from fire by a raw-hide, originally related by Lewis and Clark, is the foundation of a great many similar stories of adventures among the Indians.  Usually, however, it is a wise and well-seasoned white trapper who saves his life by this device.

Having found a good site for their winter camp, the explorers now built a number of huts, which they called Fort Mandan.  The place was on the north bank of the Missouri River, in what is now McLean County, North Dakota, about sixteen hundred miles up the river from St. Louis, and seven or eight miles below the mouth of Big Knife River.  On the opposite bank, years later, the United States built a military post known as Fort Clark, which may be found on some of the present-day maps.  The huts were built of logs, and were arranged in two rows, four rooms in each hut, the whole number being placed in the form of an angle, with a stockade, or picket, across the two outer ends of the angle, in which was a gate, kept locked at night.  The roofs of the huts slanted upward from the inner side of the rows, making the outer side of each hut eighteen feet high; and the lofts of these were made warm and comfortable with dry grass mixed with clay, Here they were continually visited during the winter by Indians from all the region around.  Here, too, they secured the services of an interpreter, one Chaboneau, who continued with them to the end.  This man’s wife, Sacajawea, whose Indian name was translated “Bird Woman,” had been captured from the Snake Indians and sold to Chaboneau, who married her.  She was “a good creature, of a mild and gentle disposition, greatly attached to the whites.”  In the expedition she proved herself more valuable to the explorers than her husband, and Lewis and Clark always speak of her in terms of respect and admiration.