BUSHNELL] VILLAGES WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI 67 
which annually meet in this region to hunt buffalo and one another. 
Remains of old Indian stockades are met with scattered about among 
the thickets; and the guide informed us, that four years since there 
were at, one and the same time, upon this one bottom, fifteen or 
twenty of these forts, constructed by different tribes. Most of them 
have since been destroyed by fire. As this was the season of the year 
when we might expect to find them upon their expeditions, we were 
on the gui vive, lest we should be surprised.” They remained in 
camp the following day, Sunday, and that evening entered in the 
journal : “ Several herds of buffalo were seen during the day.” 
The morning of the 23d was warm and cloudy, and the party soon 
after leaving their camp forded the river “on a ripple, with a depth 
of eighteen inches.” The water was clear, with a pebbly bottom. 
That this location was frequented by Indians was again indicated 
by the discovery of another great group of “ forts,’ as told in the 
narrative: “ Immediately above where we crossed, were about twenty 
Indian forts, or lodges constructed of logs set up endwise, somewhat 
in the form of an ordinary skin lodge, which had been erected among 
the timber by different war-parties: they appeared to be very strong, 
and were ball-proof.” (Stansbury, (1), pp. 243-246.) These 
strongly constructed lodges will at once recall the rather similar 
structures which stood at some of the Siouan villages, on the Mis- 
sissipp1 below the mouth of the Minnesota, during the early years 
of the last century. 
On September 27, when about midway across the present Albany 
County, Wyoming, the expedition encountered a large number of In- 
dians belonging to a village a short distance beyond. These proved 
to be the Oglala, and during the following day the village was visited 
by Stansbury, who wrote in the journal: “This village was the 
largest and by far the best-looking of any I had ever seen. It con- 
sisted of nearly one hundred lodges, most of which were entirely 
new, pitched upon the level prairie which borders on the verdant 
banks of the Laramie. No regular order seemed to be observed in 
their position, but each builder appeared to have selected the site for 
his habitation according to his own fancy. 
“We rode at once to the lodge of the chief, which was painted in 
broad horizontal stripes of alternate black and white, and, on the side 
opposite to the entrance, was ornamented with large black crosses on 
a white ground. We found the old fellow sitting on the floor of his 
lodge, and his squaw busily engaged over a few coals, endeavouring to 
fry, or rather boil, in a pan nearly filled with grease, some very 
suspicious-looking lumps of dough, made doubtless from the flour 
they had received from us yesterday. .. After some further con- 
versation, another chief, named the ‘Iron Heart,’ rose up and in- 
