Even the Kansas knew that Big White had gone down the river, and were waiting to see him go by.
"The whites are as the grasses of the prairie," said Big White.
In July the new Governor, Meriwether Lewis, arrived and assumed the Government. With difficulty the officers had endeavoured to harmonise the old and the new. All was in feud, faction, disorder.
St. Louis was a foreign village before the cession. Nor was this changed in a day.
"Deed not de great Napoleon guarantee our leebertee?" said the French. "We want self-government."
But Lewis and Clark, these two had met the French ideal of chivalry in facing the Shining Mountains and the Ocean. Pretty girls sat in the verandas to see them pass. Fur magnates set out their choicest viands. The conquest of St. Louis was largely social. With less tact and less winning personalities we might have had discord.
Whatever Lewis wanted, Clark seconded as a sort of Lieutenant Governor. It seemed as if the two might go on forever as they had done in the great expedition. Ever busy, carving districts that became future States, laying out roads, dispensing justice and treating with Indians, all went well until the 16th of October, when a wave of sensation swept over St. Louis.
"Big White, the Mandan chief, is back. The American flag at the bow of his boat has been fired on and he is compelled to fall back on St. Louis."
All summer the vengeful Arikaras had been watching.
"They killed our chief, the Brave Raven."