d with the Indians, representing to
them that they were transgressing the orders of the government, and that
should a hostile meeting take place they would certainly incur the
displeasure of their 'great father' at Washington.

Heedless of our remonstrances they continued to advance until it became
evident that the Sioux and not buffalo were their object. The truth was,
they felt themselves in an excellent condition to meet their ancient
enemy. They numbered, beside old men and the young and untried, three
hundred and twenty-five warriors, mounted and armed with rifles, many of
them veterans who had seen service on the side of Great Britain in her
last war with this country, and most of whom had served with Black Hawk in
his brief but desperate contest with the United States. Moreover, they
placed some reliance on the whites who accompanied them; all of whom,
except my friend B----, of Kentucky, one or two others and myself, were
old frontier men, versed in the arts of Indian warfare.

As for myself, I felt far from comfortable in the position in which I
found myself placed; hundreds of miles from any white settlement, and
expecting hourly to be forced into a conflict where no glory was to be
gained, and in which defeat would be certain death, while victory could
not fail to bring upon us the censure of our government. The idea of
offering up my scalp as a trophy to Sioux valor, and leaving my bones to
bleach on the wide prairie, with no prayer over my remains nor stone to
mark the spot of my sepulture, was far from comfortable. I thought of the
old church-yard amidst the green hills of New-England, where repose the
dust of my ancestors, and would much preferred to have been gathered
there, full of years, 'like a shock of corn fully ripe in its season,'
rather than to be cut down in the morning of life by the roving Sioux, and
my frame left a dainty morsel for the skulking wolf of the prairie. I
communicated my sentiments to B----, and found that his views corresponded
with mine. 'But,' said he, with the spirit of a genuine Kentuckian, 'we
are in for it, Harry, and we must fight; it will not do to let these
Indians see us show the white feather.'

It was under such circumstances, and with these feelings, that we pitched
our tents after a hard day's march, in a valley near the margin of a
little stream which uniting with others forms the Checauque, one of the
tributaries of the Mississippi. The river flowed in our front