should hate to make any mistakes in my answers. Now tell me, who are the Mandans?"

"I don't know as much about the Mandans as I do about the Gros Ventres of the Village," said Hugh, "and yet I've heard a lot about them. They're a kind of queer people; lots of 'em used to have yellow hair and gray eyes, and lots of 'em now have gray-haired children, same as you have seen among the Blackfeet. I got hold of a book once with lots of pictures of Indians in it; mighty good pictures, too, they were. 'T was written by a man named Catlin, who came up the river, painting pictures of Indians, a long time ago; maybe fifty years. He said he thought the Mandans were Welshmen, and told some story about some foreign prince that brought a colony of Welshmen over here, and Catlin thought that maybe the Mandans were descended from that colony. Anyhow they've lived by themselves, so the story goes, for a great many years; but I've heard the old men say that long, long ago the tribe came from away back East somewhere. They followed down a big river that ran from east to west, likely it may have been the Ohio River, until they came to the Mississippi, and then they struck off northwest, and camped on the Missouri, and they have been traveling up the Missouri, a little way at a time, for an almighty sight o' years.

"This book of Catlin's that I tell you about has got a whole lot o' stuff about the Mandans, and it is mighty good readin'. You had better get hold of it sometime when you get back East; it'll tell you more about 'em than I can. The Mandans have always been farmers, and raised good crops of corn, and that and their buffalo give them a pretty good living. But now the buffalo are getting scarce, and when they give out the Mandans will have to live on straight corn, I am afraid. There's one thing about the Mandans that's worth rememberin', they make the best pots of any people that I know of on the plains. I expect that in old times maybe the Pawnees made just as good pots, but since the white folks began to bring brass and copper kettles into the country the Pawnees have forgotten how to make pots; but the Mandans still keep it up, and make some pots, big and little——"

"Oh, Hugh!" called Jack at this moment, "Look at the buffalo!" and he pointed toward the high bluffs on the south side of the river, and there were three dark spots, running as hard as they could up the hill.

"Sure enough," said Hugh, "there's the first buffalo we've seen. Don't they look like three rats scuttling off over the hills, as fast as they can go. Before long, now, we ought to see plenty of 'em along the river; though we ain't likely to see many buffalo before we get above Buford."

The boat pushed slowly up the river's muddy current, and Hugh and Jack continued to talk about the Indian village on the hill.

"A mighty queer thing happened once at that village, son," said Hugh. "You've heard, maybe, that in some tribes of Indians they have sort of prophets, or men that foretell things that are going to happen. I have seen a little of that sort of thing myself, that I never could explain. Besides that, they've got some way of learning news that we don't understand anything about. Of course it may not be as quick as railroads and telegraphs, but its quick. Let me tell you something that happened there at Berthold, some years ago, and the man that it happened to lives in the upper country now, and you may likely run across him some time when you are up there. He is a Dutchman, and his name is Joe Butch.

"Along in 1868, Joe was working at Berthold, for a trader there, and the trader got into some sort of a quarrel about a horse with old White Cow, chief of the Mandans, and I guess old White Cow was pretty sassy, and maybe he threatened to do something, and Joe killed him. Well, as soon as he had killed the old man, Joe he knew that that wasn't no place for him, because the Mandans would be pretty sure to kill him; so he hops onto his horse, and rides as hard as he could for Buford, that's eighty miles up the river, next place we stop at. When he got to Buford he found there a big camp of Assinaboines, and they were having a big dance, because the chief of the Mandans, their enemies, had just been killed. Now, how do you suppose those Assinaboines knew that White Cow had been killed? Joe didn't waste no time getting onto his horse, and he rode as hard as he could to Buford; and its a sure thing that nobody got there before him with the news. I never understood how they found that out, and I never expect to."

"That seems a wonderful thing, Hugh," said Jack. "I don't see how they could have found it out if nobody told them, and if there were no telegraphs."

"Well, it's sure there were no telegraphs," said Hugh, "and I don't see how anybody could have told them. Joe killed the man, and started on his ride right off, and had a good horse. That's one of the things that always beat me."

The hours passed swiftly by for Jack and Hugh, as they watched the river banks on either side. The boat had met a flood of water just above Berthold, which, if it made progress against the strong current more slow, nevertheless saved time by deepening the water, so that they did not run aground on sand-bars. Several times during the morning, antelope were seen feeding in the bottom, lifting their heads to gaze at the boat, as it puffed and snorted along, but not being enough alarmed to take to flight. After supper that night, as they sat on the deck about sundown, Hugh, watching the banks, pointed out no less than three distant spots on the wide bottom, which he told Jack were bears digging roots. They were a long way off, yet with his glasses Jack was able to make out their forms, and to recognize them as bears.

CHAPTER II
THE BATTLE OF THE MUSSELSHELL

Early next morning the boat stopped at Fort Buford, above the mouth of the Yellowstone River.

The wait was to be only a short one, and no one left the boat. Jack was interested in looking from the upper deck at the post, where there were a number of soldiers, and it looked like a busy place. Away to the left was seen the broad current of the Yellowstone coming down between timbered banks. As the two friends sat on the upper deck and looked off toward the shore, Hugh, in response to some question by Jack, said:

"Yes, in old fur-trading days this used to be a mighty interesting place. Just above here was one of the great trading posts of old times, and pretty much all the tribes of the northern prairie used to come here to get their ammunition, and whatever other stuff they could buy. Old man Culbertson was here for a long time, and lots of people from back east and from foreign parts used to come up the river as far as this. Sometimes they used to have great fights out here on this flat, when two hostile tribes would come in to trade and would get here at the same time. I've heard great stories about the way the Indians used to fight here among themselves almost under the walls of the post; and, then, again, sometimes the Indians used to crawl up as near to the fort as they could, and try to run off the horse herd, which would be feeding right out in front of the post. Sometimes they'd get 'em; sometimes they wouldn't, but would get one of the herders. On the whole, however, the place wasn't often attacked, because the Indians couldn't afford to quarrel with the people who furnished them with their goods. When 'twas Fort Union, 'twas a mighty lively place."

"Why Hugh," said Jack, "do you mean to tell me that this is old Fort Union?"

"Sure," said Hugh.

"Why," said Jack, "I've read lots about Fort Union. Don't you know that in 1843 Audubon, the naturalist, and a party of