re they were made
welcome and obliged to tell in detail the story of their long journey.

CHAPTER XV

AMONG THE MANDANS

"Well," said Jesse, late the next afternoon, when, in accordance with
his promise, this new friend had pointed out the place where, the expert
investigators usually agreed, the explorers built their winter quarters
in the year 1804--near the plot called Elm Point, even now heavily
timbered. "I don't see much of a fort left here now. What's become of
it?"

"What becomes of any house built of cottonwood logs in ten or twenty
years?" smiled his uncle. "But the _Journal_ and other books tell us
that here or about here is where the old stockade once stood. It was
opposite to where Fort Clark later was built in 1831. You see, Fort
Clark was on the west side, on a high bluff, and in its time quite a
post, for it was one hundred and thirty-two by one hundred and
forty-seven feet in size, and well built. Fort Clark was about
fifty-five miles above the Northern Pacific Railroad bridge at Bismarck,
North Dakota. We've had a good day's run of it.

"All Clark tells us about Fort Mandan is that it was on the north bank,
that the ground was sandy, and that they cleared the timber to make
room. He says they had cottonwood and elm and some small ash, but
complains that the logs were large and heavy and they had to carry them
in on hand spikes, by man power. They used no horses in rolling up the
logs.

"But Patrick Gass tells more about the way they did. They had two rows
of cabins, in two wings, at right angles, and each cabin had four rooms
in it. I think the men slept upstairs, for when the walls were up seven
feet they laid a puncheon floor, covered with grass and clay, which Gass
says made 'a warm loft.' This projected about a foot, and a puncheon
roof was put over that.

"The outer wall was about eighteen feet high. They had several
fireplaces. They made a couple of storerooms in the angle of the two
wings, and then put up their stockade in front, to complete their
square. This stockade was made of upright logs, and had a gate, like
most of the frontier posts, so that, what with their swivel gun and all
their rifles, they could have made quite a fight against any sort of an
attack, although they had no trouble of any kind.

"They were not very far from the Mandan villages. Quite a settlement
this was, in these parts--not mentioning nine deserted villages inside
of sixty miles below--two Mandan