ives in succession at the fort, and demand a
feast. Smoke's village had come with the express design, having made
several days' journey with no other object than that of enjoying a cup
of coffee and two or three biscuits. So the "feast" was demanded, and
the emigrants dared not refuse it.

One evening, about sunset, the village was deserted. We met old men,
warriors, squaws, and children in gay attire, trooping off to the
encampment, with faces of anticipation; and, arriving here, they seated
themselves in a semicircle. Smoke occupied the center, with his warriors
on either hand; the young men and boys next succeeded, and the squaws
and children formed the horns of the crescent. The biscuit and coffee
were most promptly dispatched, the emigrants staring open-mouthed at
their savage guests. With each new emigrant party that arrived at Fort
Laramie this scene was renewed; and every day the Indians grew more
rapacious and presumptuous. One evening they broke to pieces, out of
mere wantonness, the cups from which they had been feasted; and this
so exasperated the emigrants that many of them seized their rifles and
could scarcely be restrained from firing on the insolent mob of Indians.
Before we left the country this dangerous spirit on the part of the
Dakota had mounted to a yet higher pitch. They began openly to threaten
the emigrants with destruction, and actually fired upon one or two
parties of whites. A military force and military law are urgently called
for in that perilous region; and unless troops are speedily stationed at
Fort Laramie, or elsewhere in the neighborhood, both the emigrants and
other travelers will be exposed to most imminent risks.

The Ogallalla, the Brules, and other western bands of the Dakota, are
thorough savages, unchanged by any contact with civilization. Not one
of them can speak a European tongue, or has ever visited an American
settlement. Until within a year or two, when the emigrants began to
pass through their country on the way to Oregon, they had seen no whites
except the handful employed about the Fur Company's posts. They esteemed
them a wise people, inferior only to themselves, living in leather
lodges, like their own, and subsisting on buffalo. But when the swarm
of MENEASKA, with their oxen and wagons, began to invade them, their
astonishment was unbounded. They could scarcely believe that the earth
contained such a multitude of white men. Their wonder is now giving way
to indig