SIOUX DEAD LODGES. 43 



the bottom would be so rapidly excavated from beneath us, that a 

 hole of sufficient depth would be formed to render swimming ne- 

 cessary. After continuing these tedious and laborious efforts 

 until we had nearly reached the opposite shore, on advancing a 

 single step we found ourselves in water beyond our depth, (the 

 channel of the river running close to the bank,) and the shirts we 

 had so carefully endeavoured to keep dry were in a moment 

 thoroughly soaked. We made out, however, to scramble ashore. 



I put on my moccasins, and, displaying my wet shirt, like a flag, 

 to the wind, we proceeded to the lodges which had attracted our 

 curiosity. There were five of them, pitched upon the open prairie, 

 and in them we found the bodies of nine Sioux, laid out upon the 

 ground, wrapped in their robes of buffalo-skin, with their saddles, 

 spears, camp-kettles, and all their accoutrements, piled up around 

 them. Some lodges contained three, others only one body, all of 

 which were more or less in a state of decomposition. A short dis- 

 tance apart from these was one lodge which, though small, seemed 

 of rather superior pretensions, and was evidently pitched with 

 great care. It contained the body of a young Indian girl of six- 

 teen or eighteen years, with a countenance presenting quite an 

 agreeable expression : 'she was richly dressed in leggings of fine 

 scarlet cloth, elaborately ornamented ; a new pair of moccasins, 

 beautifully embroidered with porcupine quills, was on her feet, and 

 her body was wrapped in two superb buffalo-robes, worked in like 

 manner. She had evidently been dead but a day or two ; and to 

 our surprise a portion of the upper part of her person was bare, 

 exposing the face and a part of the breast, as if the robes in which 

 she was wrapped had by some means been disarranged, whereas all 

 the other bodies were closely covered up. It was, at the time, the 

 opinion of our mountaineers that these Indians must have fallen in 

 an encounter with a party of Crows ; but I subsequently learned 

 that they had all died of the cholera, and that this young girl, 

 being considered past recovery, had been arrayed by her friends 

 in the habiliments of the dead, enclosed in the lodge alive, and 

 abandoned to her fate — so fearfully alarmed were the Indians by 

 this, to them, novel and terrible disease. But the melancholy tale 

 of this poor forsaken girl, does not end here. Her abandonment 

 by her people, though with inevitable death before her eyes, may 

 perhaps be excused from the extremity of their terror; but what 

 will be thought of the conduct of men enlightened by Christianity^ 

 and under no such excess of fear, who, by their own confession, ap~ 



