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[1] Some months after writing the above, and after I had arrived safe in St. Louis, the news reached there that the Dog had been overtaken and killed, and a brother of his also, and the affair thus settled. The portraits are in Vol. II. (plates [273], [274], and [275]), and the story there told.
LETTER—No. 33.
FORT LEAVENWORTH, LOWER MISSOURI.
I mentioned in a former epistle, that this is the extreme outpost on the Western Frontier, and built, like several others, in the heart of the Indian country. There is no finer tract of lands in North America, or, perhaps, in the world, than that vast space of prairie country, which lies in the vicinity of this post, embracing it on all sides. This garrison, like many others on the frontiers, is avowedly placed here for the purpose of protecting our frontier inhabitants from the incursions of Indians; and also for the purpose of preserving the peace amongst the different hostile tribes, who seem continually to wage, and glory in, their deadly wars. How far these feeble garrisons, which are generally but half manned, have been, or will be, able to intimidate and controul the warlike ardour of these restless and revengeful spirits; or how far they will be able in desperate necessity, to protect the lives and property of the honest pioneer, is yet to be tested.
They have doubtless been designed with the best views, to effect the most humane objects, though I very much doubt the benefits that are anticipated to flow from them, unless a more efficient number of men are stationed in them than I have generally found; enough to promise protection to the Indian, and then to ensure it; instead of promising, and leaving them to seek it in their own way at last, and when they are least prepared to do it.
When I speak of this post as being on the Lower Missouri, I do not wish to convey the idea that I am down near the sea-coast, at the mouth of the river, or near it; I only mean that I am on the lower part of the Missouri, yet 600 miles above its junction with the Mississippi, and near 2000 from the Gulf of Mexico, into which the Mississippi discharges its waters.