of amity.  They immediately pulled to shore and landed.  On approaching the savages, however, the latter showed evident symptoms of alarm, spreading out their arms horizontally, according to their mode of supplicating clemency.  The reason was soon explained.  They proved to be two chiefs of the very war party that had brought Messrs. Crooks and M’Lellan to a stand two years before, and obliged them to escape down the river.  They ran to embrace these gentlemen, as if delighted to meet with them; yet they evidently feared some retaliation of their past misconduct, nor were they quite at ease until the pipe of peace had been smoked.

Mr. Hunt having been informed that the tribe to which these men belonged had killed three white men during the preceding summer, reproached them with the crime, and demanded their reasons for such savage hostility.  “We kill white men,” replied one of the chiefs, “because white men kill us.  That very man,” added he, pointing to Carson, one of the new recruits, “killed one of our brothers last summer.  The three white men were slain to avenge his death.”

Their chief was correct in his reply.  Carson admitted that, being with a party of Arickaras on the banks of the Missouri, and seeing a war party of Sioux on the opposite side, he had fired with his rifle across.  It was a random shot, made without much expectation of effect, for the river was full half a mile in breadth.  Unluckily it brought down a Sioux warrior, for whose wanton destruction threefold vengeance had been taken, as has been stated.  In this way outrages are frequently committed on the natives by thoughtless or mischievous white men; the Indians retaliate according to a law of their code, which requires blood for blood; their act, of what with them is pious vengeance, resounds throughout the land, and is represented as wanton and unprovoked; the neighborhood is roused to arms; a war ensues, which ends in the destruction of half the tribe, the ruin of the rest, and their expulsion from their hereditary homes.  Such is too often the real history of Indian warfare, which in general is traced up only to some vindictive act of a savage; while the outrage of the scoundrel white man that provoked it is sunk in silence.

The two chiefs, having smoked their pipe of peace and received a few presents, departed well satisfied.  In a little while two others appeared on horseback, and rode up abreast of the boats.  They had seen the presents given to their comrades, but were dissatisfied with them, and came after the boats to ask for more.  Being somewhat peremptory and insolent in their demands, Mr. Hunt gave them a flat refusal, and threatened, if they or any of their tribes followed him with similar demands, to treat them as enemies.  They turned and rode off in a furious passion.  As he was ignorant what force these chiefs might have behind the hills, and as it was very possible they might take advantage of some pass of the river to attack the