The Arikara chief who had come up on the barge was well received. The Mandans promised to observe peace between the two nations.
“We did not begin the war,” they said. “We have been killing those ’Rees like we kill birds, until we are tired of killing. Now we will send a chief to them, with this chief of theirs, and they can smoke peace.”
Camp was made at a spot picked out by Captain Clark, across the river, below the first Mandan village, and everybody not on guard duty was set at work erecting winter quarters. Captain Clark had charge of the camp, but Patrick Gass “bossed” the work. He was a carpenter. Axes rang, trees were felled and under Patrick’s direction were trimmed and notched, to form the walls and roofs of the cabins.
There were to be two rows of cabins, joined so as to make four rooms, below, on each side, and four rooms above, entered by ladders. The walls were of hewn logs tightly chinked with clay; and the ceilings, seven feet high, were of planks trimmed with adzes—and covered with grass and clay to make a warm floor for the lofts. The roofs slanted inward, which made the outside of the rows eighteen feet high, so that nobody could climb over. Every down-stairs room had a fire-place, and a plank floor. The two rows met, at one end, and were open at the other; and across this opening was to be stretched a high fence of close, thick pickets, entered by a stout gate.
The Mandans and their Indian friends marveled much at the skill of the white men, and at the strength of York, the Great Medicine. They admitted that these white men’s houses were better even than the Mandan lodges—although the Mandan lodges were also of heavy timbers, plastered with earth, and banked with earth at the bottoms; had doors of buffalo hide, and fireplaces in the middle.
Mr. Jessaume, the French trader, moved to the camp, with his Mandan wife and child; and so did another French trader named Toussaint Chaboneau. He had two wives: one was very old and ugly, but the other was young and handsome. She was a Sho-sho-ne girl, from far-off. The Minnetaree Indians had attacked her people and taken her captive, and Chaboneau had bought her as his wife. She and the old wife did not get along together very well.
Mr. Jessaume and Chaboneau could speak the languages, and were hired by the captains to be interpreters for the camp.
“My young wife come from ze Rock mountains,” said Chaboneau—who was a dark little man, his wrinkled face like smoked leather. “One time I was dere. I trade with Minnetaree.”
“You never were over the mountains, Toussaint, were you?” asked Sergeant Pryor.
“Me, Monsieur Sergeant?” And Toussaint shuddered. “Ma foi (my word), no! It is not ze possible. Up dere, no meat, no grass, no trail, notting but rock, ice, cold, an’ ze terrible savages out for ze scalp.”