aS 
LAKE MANDAN. 127. 
Otter, too—next the eagle, an Indian’s greatest 
prize—clung tenaciously to the lake and the small feed- 
ing streams around and about it. 
Here, also, in hiding like the deer he hunted, passing 
his last days in the quiet of a hermit life—scrowling 
and soured—was Partisan, the last heriditary chief of 
the Wanderers, a defunct band of the once numerous 
Aricarees. Sometimes alone or witha faithful wife, 
other times with a companion ortwo—faithful adherents 
of a cause that was—this red man of brooding and 
solitary ways, often appeared as the uninvited guest to 
‘the banquet of some wandering trapper’s camp or at 
the tie-up of the descending miners or voyagers on their 
way down the Missouri. 
The following was one among the many laconic in- 
terviews that took place between the Partizan and the 
writer at Lake Maidan: 
On one of the last days of Octover, 1874, in com- 
pany with a young man named ‘‘Buck’’ Raney, the 
writer started out on a pack pony trapping trip to the 
lower Knife River from the Painted Woods, going up 
on the west side by way of Pretty Point and Lake Man- 
dan. We reached the lake about sundown and went 
into camp on the south side under some large elm trees. 
After unpacking our loads and picketing out our ponies 
we went on separate ways to try and get a deer for sup- 
per. In this we were not successful and returned to 
camp only to find that the picket pins were pulled and 
our stock gone. It wasthen about dark andto attempt 
to take up the trail of the ponies until daylight would be 
out of the question, so we returned to the camp and 
consoled ourselves by building a large fire under one of 
