278 Expedition to the 



food or water. In this manner, he led the horse to the mar- 

 gin of the river. The horse, of course, endeavoured to drink, 

 but it was the province of the Indian to prevent him, and 

 that only by straining at the cords with the muscles of the 

 shoulder, without resorting to the assistance of his hands. 

 And notwithstanding all the exertions of the horse to drink, 

 his master succeeded in preventing him, and returned with 

 him to his lodge, having accomplished his painful task. 



The Wolf chief, one of the most eminent of the warriors 

 of the upper village of the Minnetarees, on one occasion, sat 

 five days, singing and lamenting, without food, on a small 

 insulated and naked rock in the Missouri river. And it is 

 firmly believed that he did not even palliate his urgent wants 

 by tasting the water, during this long probation. 



Many of the Minnetarees believe that the bones of those 

 bisons, which they have slain and divested of flesh, rise again 

 clothed with renewed flesh, and quickened with life, and 

 become fat, and fit for slaughter the succeeding June. They 

 assert that some of their nation, who were formerly on a 

 hunting excursion, lost one of their party, a boy, and return- 

 ed to the village lamenting his loss, and believing him to have 

 been killed by the Sioux nation, with whom they were then at 

 war. Some time afterward, a war party was assembled, that 

 departed to revenge the supposed murder of the boy. Du- 

 ring their journey, they espied a bison, which they pursued 

 and killed. When lo! on opening the abdomen of the ani- 

 mal, what was their astonishment to observe the long lost boy, 

 alive and well, after having been imprisoned there one entire 

 year. Relieved from his animated prison house, he informed 

 them, that, when he left his hunting companions, he proceeded 

 onward a considerable distance, until he was so fortunate as 

 to kill this bison. He removed the flesh from one side of the 

 animal, and as a rainy inclement night was approaching, he 

 concluded to take shelter within the body of the animal, in 

 place of the viscera, which he had taken out. But during the 



