g more cordial than the
ordinary cold salute of an Indian, for we were excellent friends. He had
made an exchange of horses to our mutual advantage; and Paul, thinking
himself well-treated, had declared everywhere that the white man had
a good heart. He was a Dakota from the Missouri, a reputed son of the
half-breed interpreter, Pierre Dorion, so often mentioned in Irving's
"Astoria." He said that he was going to Richard's trading house to sell
his horse to some emigrants who were encamped there, and asked me to go
with him. We forded the stream together, Paul dragging his wild charge
behind him. As we passed over the sandy plains beyond, he grew quite
communicative. Paul was a cosmopolitan in his way; he had been to the
settlements of the whites, and visited in peace and war most of the
tribes within the range of a thousand miles. He spoke a jargon of French
and another of English, yet nevertheless he was a thorough Indian; and
as he told of the bloody deeds of his own people against their enemies,
his little eye would glitter with a fierce luster. He told how the
Dakota exterminated a village of the Hohays on the Upper Missouri,
slaughtering men, women, and children; and how an overwhelming force of
them cut off sixteen of the brave Delawares, who fought like wolves
to the last, amid the throng of their enemies. He told me also another
story, which I did not believe until I had it confirmed from so many
independent sources that no room was left for doubt. I am tempted to
introduce it here.

Six years ago a fellow named Jim Beckwith, a mongrel of French,
American, and negro blood, was trading for the Fur Company, in a very
large village of the Crows. Jim Beckwith was last summer at St. Louis.
He is a ruffian of the first stamp; bloody and treacherous, without
honor or honesty; such at least is the character he bears upon the
prairie. Yet in his case all the standard rules of character fail,
for though he will stab a man in his sleep, he will also perform most
desperate acts of daring; such, for instance, as the following: While he
was in the Crow village, a Blackfoot war party, between thirty and forty
in number came stealing through the country, killing stragglers and
carrying off horses. The Crow warriors got upon their trail and pressed
them so closely that they could not escape, at which the Blackfeet,
throwing up a semicircular breastwork of logs at the foot of a
precipice, coolly awaited their approach. The logs