BUSHNELL] VILLAGES WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI 85 
The preceding references to fortified camps are of great interest, 
but similar works were mentioned by other explorers of the upper 
Missouri Valley. During the summer of 1833 several were encoun- 
tered by Maximilian, and on July 18 of that year he wrote: “On 
this day at noon, we reached, on the south bank, an Indian fort .. . 
it is a kind of breastwork, which Indian war-parties construct in 
haste of dry trunks of trees. ... This fort consisted of a fence, 
and several angles, enclosing a rather small space, with the open 
side towards the river. In the center of the space there was a 
conical hut, composed of wood. Near this fort, on the same bank of 
the river, there was a beaver’s den made of a heap of brushwood.” 
(Maximilian, (1), p. 216.) Six days before, on July 12, they had 
encountered several huts probably similar to that which stood within 
the “fort.” In the narrative it is said: “ Just at the place where our 
vessel lay, were four old Indian huts, of some war or hunting party, 
composed of trunks and boughs of trees piled together in a square, 
in which some of our party made a fire to cook their meat. Scarcely 
100 paces above these huts, was the Indian Fort Creek of Lewis and 
Glark.”; (Op. cit., p. 212.) 
Elsewhere in this sketch other native “ forts” will be mentioned. 
The erection of such works appears to have been quite common 
among the widely scattered tribes. 
Fortunately, a very interesting picture of a skin lodge village or 
camp of the Atsina has been preserved, a painting made by Bodmer 
during the summer of 1833, when it was visited by Maximilian. It 
stood on the bank of the Yellowstone, at the mouth of the Big Horn, 
near the dividing line between Rosebud and Yellowstone Counties, 
Montana. Describing the settlement as it appeared on the evening 
of August 3, 1833, Maximilian wrote: “On the left was the mouth 
of Bighorn River, between considerable hills, on which numbers of 
Indians had collected. In the front of the eminence the prairie de- 
clined gently towards the river, where above 260 leather tents of the 
Indians were set up; the tent of the principal chief was in the fore- 
ground, and, near it, a high pole, with the American flag. The 
whole prairie was covered with Indians, in various groups, and with 
numerous dogs; horses of every colour were grazing round, and 
horsemen galloping backwards and forwards, among whom was a 
celebrated chief, who made a good figure on his light bay horse.” 
These were the Gros Ventres, “called by the English, Fall Indians.” 
(Maximilian, (1), pp. 231-232.) Bodmer’s painting, or more correctly, 
an engraving made from the painting, is reproduced in plate 17. 
On July 8, 1842, Fremont, while on his journey to the Rocky Moun- 
tains, reached a village of the Arapaho and Cheyenne. But before 
arriving at the village the party came in contact with a large number 
