“Yes, Ba’tiste, it is a fact: thus ended the days and the greatness, and all the pride and hopes of Wi-jun-jon, the ‘Pigeon’s Egg Head,’—a warrior and a brave of the valiant Assinneboins, who travelled eight thousand miles to see the President, and all the great cities of the civilized world; and who, for telling the truth, and nothing but the truth, was, after he got home, disgraced and killed for a wizard.
“‘Oh, Monsieur Cataline—I am distress—I am sick—I was hope he is not true—oh I am mortify. Wi-jun-jon was coot Ingin—he was my bruddare—eh bien—eh bien.’
“Now, my friend Ba’tiste, I see you are distressed, and I regret exceedingly that it must be so; he was your friend and relative, and I myself feel sad at the poor fellow’s unhappy and luckless fate; for he was a handsome, an honest, and a noble Indian.”
“‘C’est vrais. Monsieur, c’est vrai.’
“This man’s death, Ba’tiste, has been a loss to himself, to his friends, and to the world, but you and I may profit by it, nevertheless, if we bear it in mind——
“‘Oui! yes, Monsr. mais, suppose, ’tis bad wind dat blows nary way, ha?’
“Yes, Ba’tiste, we may profit by his misfortune, if we choose. We may call it a ‘caution;’ for instance, when I come to write your book, as you have proposed, the fate of this poor fellow, who was relating no more than what he actually saw, will caution you against the imprudence of telling all that you actually know, and narrating all that you have seen, lest like him you sink into disgrace for telling the truth. You know, Ba’tiste, that there are many things to be seen in the kind of life that you and I have been living for some years past, which it would be more prudent for us to suppress than to tell.
“‘Oui, Monsieur. Well, súppose, perhaps I am discourage about de book. Mais, we shall see, ha?’”
Thus ended the last night’s gossip, and in the cool of this morning, we bid adieu to the quiet and stillness of this wild place, of which I have resolved to give a little further account before we take leave of it.
From the Fall of St. Anthony, my delightful companion (Mr. Wood, whom I have before mentioned) and myself, with our Indian guide, whose name was O-kup-pee, tracing the beautiful shores of the St. Peters river, about eighty miles; crossing it at a place called “Traverse des Sioux,” and recrossing it at another point about thirty miles above the mouth of “Terre Bleue,” from whence we steered in a direction a little North of West for the “Côteau des Prairies,” leaving the St. Peters river, and crossing one of the most beautiful prairie countries in the world, for the distance of one hundred and twenty or thirty miles, which brought us to the base of the Côteau, where we were joined by our kind and esteemed companion Monsieur La Fromboise, as I have before related. This tract of country as well as that along the St. Peters river, is mostly covered with the richest soil, and furnishes an abundance of good water, which flows from a thousand living springs. For many miles we had the Côteau in view in the distance before us, which looked like a blue cloud settling down in the horizon; and we were scarcely sensible of the fact, when we had arrived at its base, from the graceful and almost imperceptible swells with which it commences its elevation above the country around it. Over these swells or terraces, gently rising one above the other, we travelled for the distance of forty or fifty miles, when we at length reached the summit; and from the base of this mound, to its top, a distance of forty or fifty miles, there was not a tree or bush to be seen in any direction, and the ground everywhere was covered with a green turf of grass, about five or six inches high; and we were assured by our Indian guide, that it descended to the West, towards the Missouri, with a similar inclination, and for an equal distance, divested of every thing save the grass that grows, and the animals that walk upon it.