"The Great Spirit lives in the clouds. If he wills that all my people shall go to him, they must obey. My little ones slept on the mystery blanket last night; they awoke this morning and were well. Will the Bad Spirit touch them?"
Then drawing the "death-blanket" closer around him, In-ne-cose apparently defied the evil effects of the wrap. But shortly afterward his dusky skin showed a slight pallor and he seemed strangely agitated. He again spoke, though this time in a disturbed voice, addressing himself, as before, directly to the doctor:
"The chief of the Mandans is rich. He has four squaws already. If the young pale-face will drive away the Bad Spirit from the little ones of In-ne-cose, he may take Ah-key-nes-tou for his wife."
The doctor, delighted at these words of the head chief, grasped the old man's hand, and told him that he would do his best to save the children. Then, ordering Ah-key-nes-tou's brother to lead his sister to his lodge on the knoll, he told another Indian to go and bring his medicine chest to the lodge of In-ne-cose. He then went to the chief's lodge himself, but on examining the little ones discovered it was too late for vaccination: the blanket had done its work!
The next day the pestilence broke out in a hundred lodges. Very soon the Indians were not able to bury their dead—the latter outnumbering the living. In less than a month, out of three thousand families only eight survived. Where the Mandan village once stood, even as late as thirty years ago the traces of over eight thousand graves could be seen. It was an awful visitation, almost annihilating a whole nation!
In-ne-cose, as predicted by the doctor, was the first to die. Ah-key-nes-tou was saved by prompt vaccination. The doctor took her to St. Louis, where they were married, the ceremony being performed by that grand and good old Catholic priest, Father DeSmet, who was stationed there at the time, and whose memory is kept green by every tribe of Indians on the continent. Ah-key-nes-tou was educated at one of the convents in the Mound City, became the pet of society, and her worthy husband a State Senator.
CARSON'S "FIRST INDIAN."
