“Never mind,” said Captain Lewis. “We’ll go on without it. Send those fellows ashore, Will. Sergeant Pryor, take a squad with you and cast off that rope.”
The Indian visitors did not wish to go ashore, but Captain Clark ordered them pushed into the pirogue which was to bear Sergeant Pryor and squad. Chief Black Buffalo still refused to go. Sergeant Pryor released the rope from the tree on the bank and returned. The sail on the barge was being hoisted—and at the instant laughter and shouts mingled, both ashore and from the boats.
A number of the Sioux had sat upon the rope, holding it!
Captain Lewis flared into hot rage.
“Take charge of the pirogues, Will,” he ordered. “Down behind the gunwale, men. Advance your rifles. See that the priming’s fresh, Ordway and Gass. Stand to your swivel, Willard!” And, to Chief Black Buffalo: “My young men are ready for battle. If your young men do not release the rope we will fire.”
“He say de young men want leetle more tobac’,” translated Drouillard.
“Tell him we have given all the presents that we’re going to give,” crisply answered Captain Lewis. “No—wait. Here!” And snatching a roll of tobacco, Captain Lewis threw it at Black Buffalo’s feet. “Tell him there is his tobacco, on the prairie. He says he is a great chief. Among the white men great chiefs are obeyed. If he is a great chief let him order his young men to release that rope and they will obey him. But we do not believe he is a great chief. He is a squaw, and the young men laugh at him.”
“Wah!” grunted Chief Black Buffalo, when he heard. He seized the tobacco and leaped from the boat, to surge for the shore. There he tumbled his young men right and left, snatched the rope and hurled it out into the water.
“Go,” he bawled. Thus he proved himself to be the great chief.
The soldiers cheered. The barge’s sail caught the breeze, the barge moved. Just in time Captain Clark leaped from the pirogue, into which he had transferred, and gained the gunwale, and the deck.