"
The weather now became excessively cold, the mercury often going
thirty-two degrees below zero. Notwithstanding this, however, the
Indians kept up their outdoor sports, one favorite game of which
resembled billiards. But instead of a table, the players had an open
flooring, about fifty yards long, and the balls were rings of stone,
shot along the flooring by means of sticks like billiard-cues. The white
men had their sports, and they forbade the Indians to visit them on
Christmas Day, as this was one of their "great medicine days." The
American flag was hoisted on the fort and saluted with a volley of
musketry. The men danced among themselves; their best provisions
were brought out and "the day passed," says the journal, "in great
festivity."
The party also celebrated New Year's Day by similar festivities. Sixteen
of the men were given leave to go up to the first Mandan village with
their musical instruments, where they delighted the whole tribe with
their dances, one of the French voyageurs being especially applauded
when he danced on his hands with his head downwards. The dancers and
musicians were presented with several buffalo-robes and a large quantity
of Indian corn. The cold grew more intense, and on the tenth of the
month the mercury stood at forty degrees below zero. Some of the men
were badly frost-bitten, and a young Indian, about thirteen years old,
who had been lost in the snows, came into the fort. The journal says:--
"His father, who came last night to inquire after him very anxiously,
had sent him in the afternoon to the fort; he was overtaken by the
night, and was obliged to sleep on the snow with no covering except a
pair of antelope-skin moccasins and leggins, and a buffalo-robe.
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