"Look!"
Red Wolf leaned against the buffalo hides that acted as door, and concealed himself amid their folds. Hardly had all this been done, ere Natah Otann appeared on the threshold.
"What! up already?" he said, in surprise, turning a suspicious glance around him.
Red Wolf profited by this movement to go out unseen by the Chief.
"I am come to receive your orders for the hunt," Natah Otann resumed.
[CHAPTER XVII.]
FORT MACKENZIE.
Fort Mackenzie, built in 1832 by Major Mitchell, Chief Agent to the North American Fur Company, stands like a menacing sentry, about one hundred and twenty paces from the north bank of the Missouri, and seventy miles from the Rocky Mountains, in the midst of a level plain, protected by a chain of hills running from north to south. The fort is built on the system of all the outposts of civilization in the western provinces; it forms a perfect square, each side being about forty-five feet in length: a ditch, eight fathoms in depth and about the same in width; two substantial blockhouses; and twenty guns—such are the defensive elements of this fortress. The buildings contained in the enceinte are low, with narrow windows, in which parchment is substituted for glass. The roofs are flat, and covered with turf. The gateways of the fort are solid, and lined with iron. In the middle of a small square, in the centre of the fort, rises a mast, from which floats the star-spangled banner of the United States, while two guns are stationed at the foot of the mast. The plain surrounding Fort Mackenzie is covered with grass, rarely more than three feet high. This plain is almost constantly invaded by Indian tribes, that come to traffic with the Americans, especially the Blackfeet, Assiniboins, Mandans, Flatheads, Gros-ventres, Crows, and Koutnikés.
The Indians displayed a repugnance in allowing the white men to settle in their domains, and the first agent the Fur Company sent to them had a narrow escape with life. It was only by dint of patience and cunning that they succeeded in concluding with the tribes a treaty of peace and barter, which the latter were disposed, indeed, to break, through the slightest pretext. Thus the Americans were always on the watch, considering themselves in a perpetual state of siege. It still happened at times, in spite of the Indians' protestations of amity, that some engagé or trapper of the Company was brought to the fort scalped and murdered, and they were obliged, through policy, to refrain from taking vengeance for such murders, which, however, were becoming rare. The Indians, with their greedy instincts, at length understood that it was better to live in good intelligence with the Palefaces, who supplied them with abundant provisions, spirits, and money, in exchange for their furs.