October 25, 1833
In the morning, weather pleasant; calm, clear sky with sunshine. At seven thirty, 34°F [1.1°C]. Today they built a fireplace and a fireplace hood of sandstone on my boat. If only it does not get too high and too heavy for the boat! Around the fort there were only four to five Assiniboine [tipis]; [they] had moved close behind the pickets for protection against the wind from the west. In the night ice had formed. The water in the boat was covered with it.
The Cree came to us and had his picture drawn. He brought me part of a tooth and the lower jawbone of a large fossil animal, without doubt an elephant, [that] he had found on the Milk River. Unfortunately, [the specimens] were broken and it was much too far to [go and] investigate there. About noon I went out to look for two markers (carved pegs) I had made during my first stay at Fort Union [and placed] near a pair of clusters of Cactus ferox on the prairie. Unfortunately, we did not find either of them. Mr. Bodmer portrayed the Cree Indian very well. He was dressed completely according to the fashion of his people and [was] a handsome man of medium height (approximately 5 feet 6 inches, Prussian). At twelve o’clock, 50°F [10°C], according to the fort’s thermometer. The sun was shining brightly but a raw wind was blowing.
In the afternoon the hunters returned. They had shot five buffalo. The fireplace hood of our boat was completed. One of the hunters brought me a large pack rat he had shot in the place where we had recently taken our lunch break when we rode along on the buffalo hunt. The Assiniboines had not been with the hunters. They turned more toward the Yellowstone.
Shortly before dusk we saw Indians coming down from the hills. They came at a quick pace toward the fort, and I counted 24 men, a war party. They were badly dressed, most of them [wearing] old hides or caps of leather and pelts around their heads; [they were] clothed entirely in leather and hides. Some [had] coal-black faces (the ones who had counted coup); most of them [were] painted red. On their backs they carried bundles of possessions, [such as] old pieces of meat, a pair of [worn?] shoes, [or] some thick bundles of a certain herb. [Some] had wrapped a wolf’s pelt around their head. In their hands some of them held lances adorned with feathers, guns in carrying cases; bows and arrows [were in cases] on their backs. [A few] wore their hair at the back in a long thick braid; others had feathers hanging down from their hair. Chardon went toward this wild, warriorlike, patrician, fast-walking group, and they were led to the Indian room of the fort.
The partisan [leader] of this group was le Fou (Uatschin-Tönschenih) (‘n’ as in French, ‘e’ half [ә]). [With them] was a young Indian, the son of Mangeur d’Hommes (Uïtschasta-Jutä), a chief loyal to the Fur Company, who was now a six-day journey from here. In the evening [the young man] came with instructions from his father to Mr. Hamilton, to tell him that another chief (Celui qui Tient le Couteau) had moved 100 [tipis] north to the Hudson’s Bay Company. The chief was insulted because of the skirmish at Fort McKenzie. The chief had his son say furthermore that a second Assiniboine war party was approaching Fort Union to steal the fort’s horses. They [should] be on their guard. The young man added that he would have had several more items to pass on, but the distance was so far (five nights) that he had forgotten his instructions. This war party was supposed to [mount] a campaign against the Hidatsas, a very disadvantageous matter for our journey, because we could come across one or the other of these unwelcome parties.
