to the dissipation of the savages, and not long afterward they commenced to pull down their respective lodges, and removed to the neighbourhood of the buffalo, for the purpose of selecting their winter quarters.

        Two weeks later a band of Brules arrived in the vicinity of
        the fort and opened a brisk trade in liquor by indulging in
        a drunken spree.

The savages crowded the fort houses seeking articles, and soon became a terrible nuisance.  One room in particular was constantly thronged to the exclusion of its regular occupants, when the latter, losing all patience with the savages, adopted the following plan to get rid of them.

After closely covering the chimney, by the aid of some half-rotten chips a dense smoke was raised, the doors and windows being closed at the same time to prevent its escape, and in an instant the apartment became filled to the point of suffocation—­too much so for the Indians, who gladly made a precipitate retreat.

They were told it was the “Long-Knife Medicine."[15] During the visit of the savages at the fort, a warrior called “Big Eagle” was struck over the head by a half-drunken trader, an incident which came very near terminating seriously, but fortunately did not.  It might have ended in the massacre of all the whites had not some of the more level-headed promptly interfered and with much effort succeeded in pacifying the enraged chief by presenting him with a horse.

At first the savage would admit of no compromise short of the offender’s blood.  He had been struck by the white man, and blood alone must atone for the aggression.  Unless that should wipe out the disgrace he could never again hold up his head among his people—­they would call him a coward, and say a white man struck the Big Eagle and he dared not resent it.

An Indian considers it the greatest indignity to receive a blow from any one, even from his own brother; and unless the affair is settled by the bestowal of a trespass offering on the part of the aggressor, he is almost sure to seek revenge, either through blood or the destruction of property.  This is more an especial characteristic of the Sioux than of any other of the savage tribes.

The liquor-traffic was a most infamous one, as an abundance of facts could prove.

In November, 1855, the American Fur Company, from Fort John, sent a quantity of their drugged liquor to an Indian village on the Chugwater, as a gift, for the purpose of preventing the sale of that article by their competitors in trade.  The consequence was that the poor creatures all got beastly drunk, and a fight ensued, in which two chiefs, Bull Bear and Yellow Lodge, and six of their personal friends were murdered.  Fourteen others who took part in the fracas were badly wounded.  Soon afterward another affair of the same character occurred, and resulted in the death of three of the savages.  Many were killed in like quarrels in the several Indian villages.