Now, this was to be a long journey, among strangers. To be sure, from the Mandans, down-river, old Sha-ha-ka, or White Head, had made the trip, in 1806, when the Red Head Chief and the Long Knife Chief were bound home from the salty water; and he had returned unharmed. Others had gone since, from the upper Missouri, and others had died; Sha-ha-ka himself had almost been killed by the Sioux.
Nobody had gone yet, from as far away as the Assiniboin country; therefore young Wijunjon feared, but was brave. He bade his wife, Chin-cha-pee, or Fire-bug-that-creeps, and his little children goodby, and with the other Assiniboin and chiefs from the Blackfeet and Crows, set out on a fur company flatboat under protection of Major Sanborn. The Assiniboin women on the shore wept and wailed. His people scarcely expected to see him again.
It was one thousand miles by river through the enemies of his nation, thence on to the great village of St. Louis; but he passed in safety. And when he began to see the first smaller villages of the Americans in Missouri, Wijunjon started in to count the houses, so that he might tell his people.
He had promised to report everything.
He commenced to count by making notches in his pipe stem—one notch for every lodge. The cabins became thicker, along the river banks, and his comrade needs must call off the lodges while he made the notches. Soon there was no more space on the pipe stem, and Wijunjon changed to his war club. Speedily he had filled this also.
Luckily, the barge tied up at the shore, while dinner was cooked. This gave him chance to cut a long willow stick, which surely would be enough.
In fact, so certain he was that the end of the white man's lodges must be close before them, that he worked hard to recut the pipe stem notches and the war club notches, in his willow stick, to have all together. But this very day he had filled the willow stick, and the lodges before them seemed more numerous than those behind!
Ere they arrived in sight of St. Louis itself, he and his comrade had an arm-load of willow sticks—all filled with notches. And here was St. Louis! How many people? Fifteen thousand! How many lodges? Thousands of lodges!
Pigeon's-egg Head pitched the bundle of willow sticks over-board. His knife was worn out, and his hand and brain were tired.
At St. Louis he stood for his portrait, painted by the same Artist Catlin who the next year, in the Mandan towns, listened to the hero tales of Mah-to-toh-pa. He was a great man at painting Indians, this Artist Catlin.