of the Sioux. A speech and appropriate presents were prepared, and here at noon the chiefs and warriors of the Yanktons arrived, and were received in council under a large oak tree, near which the American flag was flying.

Among the Indian nations or tribes enumerated by Mr. Gass, the journalist of the expedition, as then inhabiting Dakota, wholly or in part, were the Great and Little Osages, Canips, Otoes, Pawnees, Loups, Mahas, Poncas, Ricarees, Mandans and Sioux. He says: "The latter nation is not fixed on the banks of the Missouri river, but habitually goes there to hunt."

Speaking of the Black Hills the Indians said: “The Evil Spirit was mad at the red people and caused the mountains to vomit fire, sand, gravel and large stones, to terrify and destroy them, but the Good Spirit had compassion and put out the fire, chased the Evil Spirit out of the mountains and left them unhurt, but when they returned to their wickedness the Great Spirit permitted the Evil Spirit to return to the mountains again and vomit forth fire; but on their becoming good and making sacrifices the Great Spirit chased away the Evil Spirit from disturbing them, and for forty snows he has not permitted him to return."

On the 24th of September they reached the mouth of Teton, now Bad River. Here they remained over one day for the purpose of holding a council with the Indians, who visited them to the number of fifty, and were very insolent and hostile, refusing to let the party depart; but they finally let them go when the officers told them they had small-pox enough on board to kill twenty such nations in a single day. Of all things the savages feared this deadly disease. They were so mischievous and hostile that the party did not venture on shore but anchored in the stream. This may have been the reason why the Indians called the river" Bad River."

On the 1st of October they passed a river corruptly called Dog River, as if from the French "chien;" its true appellation is Chayenne, from the Indians of that name.

This river rises in the Black Mountains; and Mr. Valle, one of three French traders whom they found here waiting for the Sioux coming down from the Ricaras, informed them that he had passed the last winter in those mountains. They were very high, he said, covered with a great quantity of pine and an abundance of game was found there.

66

Soon after the Lewis and Clark expedition, American traders and adventurers began to push their way into the hitherto unknown Northwest, establishing posts for the trade in furs with the natives. The goods for the trade with the Dakotas were brought up the river in open boats propelled by oars and wind, and cordalled" over the bars with long tow ropes fastened to the boats and drawn by men walking along the shores. The furs and peltries were taken to the distant St. Louis market in the spring, the journeys down the upper tributaries being often made in circular boats of skins, with which the channel could be followed, regardless of the sand-bars, snags and darkness.

The Missouri Fur Company was established in 1808; the American Fur Company by John Jacob Astor, of New York, in 1809, and about this time the first trading posts were established in the country drained by the Missouri river, one of these posts being at the junction of the north and south fork of the Cheyenne river, close to where the Smithville post-office now is. Astor fitted out the first overland fur party in 1811, who voyaged in oar boats up the Missouri river to the Arikaree Indian villages, and from thence Messrs. Hunt and Crook went overland across the country north of the Black Hills, through the Wind river and Rocky Mountains to Astoria, on the Pacific coast.

The Rocky Mountain Fur Company commenced to make annual expeditions to the head-waters of the Missouri in 1826. The American Fur Company, stimulated by this competition, extended their operations, until, in 1832, it had become the controlling corporation in the whole Northwest.

It is claimed that Pierre Chouteau, of this company, was the first man to run a steamboat up the Missouri river into Dakota, and under his pilotship the steamer Antelope and

Yellowstone, in 1832 and 1833, were the first to plow Dakota's waters.

In 1833 Prince Maximilian of Neunvied, Germany, was on the steamer Yellowstone, and from the 15th to 19th of June stopped at the mouth of Bad river. He says: "Upon the Cheyenne river towards the Black Hills are found the Cheyenne Indians, and Dr. Morse says they number about 3,250 souls."

From the year 1837, when the scheme for a Northern Pacific Railroad was first projected, up to the 2d of July, 1864, when President Lincoln signed the charter for the proposed Northern Pacific Railroad, the newspapers gave glowing accounts of the rich land west of the Missouri, to be opened up by the enterprise to the agriculturist, and of the beds of coal and mines of gold and silver, and the richness of the country which the Sioux occupied. These matters were discussed in meetings held in Eastern cities and in newspapers, without the slightest reference to the rights and possession of the Indians, guaranteed by solemn treaty. The speakers at those meetings often drew on their imagination for facts, exaggerating in proportion to their ignorance of the resources of the country. They pictured a new El Dorado in the Big Horn Mountains and in the Black Hills, and called upon the adventurers to join expeditions which were to start from the neighboring cities and fight their way through to their destination in spite of hostile Indians.

Wood, F. Brown, R. Kent, William King, Indian Crow, all dead but me Ezra Kind. Killed by Indians beyond the High Hill. They got all of our gold, June, 1834."

On the opposite side is cut in similar characters: "Got all the gold we could carry; our ponies

were got by the Indians. I

lot all of the

have lost my gun and have have lost

nothing to eat. Indians are hunting me."

gold we could arry our ly the and nothing to lost my eal and indians hunting

In the summer of 1852, a party of three hundred left Council Bluffs to cross the plains and mountains

in search of wealth said to lie in the streams of California. They were led by Captain Douglas of St. Joseph Valley, Michigan. After a long and weary march, they reached Fort Laramie, where they rested several days. While there a French trapper came to the camp and learning that they were in search of gold told them that if such was the case there was no necessity for them to go as far as California since he could bring them to a place not more than a few days' journey, in the Black Hills, where they could find all the gold they wanted. A party of thirty men accompanied the trapper to prospect the country. It was agreed that if they discovered gold they would overtake the main party on the Humboldt river and report. Eight of them did overtake the main party as agreed and reported that they found gold upon two streams but that owing to the amount of water and depth of the earth they were unable to reach bed rock; that from those creeks they went in a northerly direction and found gold in paying quantities, and that the main body of the party had sent them to make the report as agreed upon and induce them to return.

As it was late in November when the delegation reached the Humboldt and the Indians being troublesome at the

time, it was deemed unsafe to return, and all went on to California. Those in the hills were never after heard from.

Many are the traces left by early prospectors. In 1876, some miners prospecting on Battle Creek discovered an old shaft about ten feet deep, and thinking it might be an easy place to reach bed rock, they sank it about ten feet deeper, where at a depth of twenty feet from the surface they found an old shovel and a pick. The wooden handles were decayed and the iron badly rusted. On the same creek some parties unearthed a skull at a depth of three feet, and near by found a pair of silver bowed spectacles, which looked as if they had lain there a long time. Near by are a number of prospectors' holes, in some of which are trees growing, the largest about eight inches in diameter. An old oak tree over two feet in diameter having been cut down near by the prospectors' holes, is almost decayed.

Between Rapid and Galens there is an old trail along which there are stumps, which even in 1877 were so badly decayed that the slightest blow upturned them, showing the ax mark where they were chopped; the bodies of the trees were decayed. Below Deadwood an old hatchet was found which showed evidence that it had been buried for many years.

CHAPTER II.

WARREN'S EXPEDITION.

This expedition was made under the direction of Capt. A. A. Humphreys, in charge of Office of Exploration and Survey, and for which the sum of $25,000 was set apart. It organized at Omaha, and left there June 27, 1856. The objects sought were to gain knowledge of the territories of Nebraska and Dakota generally in both practical and scientific matters, and among the former was specially