NARRATIVE OF 1853. 93 
foot tribes. It is worthy of note, not only to commemorate the noble heroine who figures in it, 
but as it may become a matter of interest to our expedition and to emigrants coming over this 
route hereafter. 
A Gros Ventre was married to a woman of the Blackfoot tribe. Travelling along, he was 
attacked, killed, and a fleet horse of his stolen. His wife was with him at the time, and the 
assassin immediately proposed that she should marry him, go northward, and the Gros Ventres 
would never learn of the death of one of their tribe. She assented. He gave her the slow 
animal upon which he had rode himself, mounting the fast horse which had been taken from 
her murdered husband. They soon arrived at water; she went off to get some, and on her 
return pressed him to go, as the water was very good. Не did во, leaving his horse with the 
squaw. After he had gone some two or three hundred yards she mounted the fastest steed, 
and, pursuing a contrary direction, joined the tribe of her deceased husband and gave such 
information as would lead to the revenge of his untimely death. I find these Indians deter. 
mined to revenge this outrage, and are now fitting out war parties for the purpose of cutting 
off straggling Blackfeet, and steal their horses. 
The comet was quite large and very bright. 
August 25. —Took an early breakfast, and got off about Т o'clock, Lander and his party having 
arrived about an hour previously. "They left camp last evening and travelled till dark, camping 
about 13 mile back of us. Struck Milk river again on its banks; made a mid-day halt, where 
we lunched. Stopped an hour, and again went forward, making to-day 221 miles, when we 
reached the camp of the Gros Ventres, on the bank of Milk river, at about 33 o'clock. It was 
with much difficulty that we found grass sufficient for camping, as it had been eaten off by the 
large bands of horses belonging to the Gros Ventres, who had been in camp here some weeks. 
This camp consisted of 300 lodges, at least 1,000 horses, and over 2,000 Indians, men, women, 
and children. We were soon waited on by others of the tribe, dressed in their finest costumes, 
among whom I would name The Cloudy Robe, who presented me with a horse, The 
Eagle, Big Top, The Discoverer, or Ball in the Nose, The man who goes on Horseback, The 
White Tail Deer, The Running Fisher, The Two Elks, The Wolf Talker, The Bear's Coat, 
White Bear, The Clay Pipe-stem Carrier, The Old Horse, The Setting Squaw, The Little White 
Calf. They requested that none but our principal men should visit their camp this afternoon, 
in accordance with which an order was issued to that effect. Accompanied by the gentlemen 
of the party, I visited their camp and the lodges of the principal chiefs, at all of which we were 
treated with the utmost kindness and hospitality. They first received us at a large lodge pre- 
pared for the occasion, some twenty-five feet in diameter, within which some sixty were seated. 
We here smoked, drank, and ate, talked some time, and then visited the lodges spoken of. I 
was much struck with the prominent characteristics of this tribe. Polygamy is universal, 
several of the chiefs above named having four, five, and even six wives, one of whom is the 
especial favorite and mistress of the household. The husband will appropriate any of them to 
purposes of prostitution when he can profit by so doing. "They appear to be a simple-m'nded 
race, easily influenced, and very kindly disposed towards the whites. They are filthy in the 
extreme in their habits, many of the women actually eating the vermin out of each other's 
heads and out of the robes in which they sleep. Being improvident, it is always feast or 
famine, either having abundance or else nothing. They furnished us to-night a mess made up 
