The incantations seemed to have had a good effect, for on another expedition shortly afterward the war-party returned with lots of scalps and thirteen hundred horses, which they had stolen from the Blackfeet.[53]

The Crows enjoyed a practical joke as well as their more humorous white brethren, as the following incident will attest.

In the summer of 1842 a war-party of about two hundred Crows invaded the Sioux country by way of Laramie Pass, penetrating as far as Fort Platte and beyond, in pursuit of the enemy.

A few miles above the fort, they stopped a lone Frenchman, an employee of one of the fur companies, who was rather new to the region, and also green in everything that pertains to Indian methods.  They began by signs to inquire the trail of the Sioux (the sign for that tribe being a transverse pass of the right front finger across the throat), which the poor Frenchman interpreted as their intention to cut his.  He immediately began to bellow like a calf, accompanying himself with an industrious number of crosses, and a most earnest prayer to the Virgin to graciously save him from his impending fate.

The savages, noticing his strange conduct, and regarding it as an evidence of fear, were disposed to have a little fun at his expense.  Then mounting him upon one of their spare horses, they tied his hands and feet, and led him to one of the trading-posts of the American Fur Company, as a prisoner.

The gates of the fort were, of course, closed, but the Crows demanded immediate admittance, declaring they wanted to trade.  What goods were wanted by them? was asked by the officer in charge; to which the leader of the savages replied, tobacco.

“What have you got to trade for it?” was then asked.

“A white man,” was the answer.

“A white man?” asked the surprised commander.  “What do you want for him?”

“Oh! he is not worth much.  A plug of tobacco is his full value!” was the response by nearly all the warriors.

The commandant, seeing through the savage joke, and on recognizing the unfortunate Frenchman, told the Indians they might possibly find a market for him at the other fort.  He did not want to purchase.

The savages paraded around the walls of the post for a few minutes, and with a salutation of terrible war-whoops, dashed off for Fort Platte.

When they reached Fort Platte, having tumbled two platforms of their dead enemies on the trail,[54] they told the same story to the commanding officer, who felt disposed to humour their joke and accordingly gave the tobacco to the savages.  Upon this they turned over the Frenchman, nearly frightened to death, and rode away in pursuit of the Sioux.

Many years ago a missionary went among the Crows.  He was admitted to an audience of the leading men, and commenced, through an interpreter, to tell them the story how sin first came into the world, and how all men had become bad, whether white or red.  Then he proceeded to explain the principles of Christianity, telling the savages that he had come among them to do them good, to show them how to be happy, and declaring that unless they listened to him and worshipped the Good Spirit as he instructed them, they could never reach that happy country into which good people alone found admittance after death.