Page:California Digital Library (IA openingwestwithl00sabirich).pdf/111

 rifles. See that the priming's fresh, Ordway and Gass. Stand to your swivel, Willard!" And, to Chief Black Buffalo: "My young men are ready for battle. If your young men do not release the rope we will fire."

"He say de young men want leetle more tobac'," translated Drouillard.

"Tell him we have given all the presents that we're going to give," crisply answered Captain Lewis. "No—wait. Here!" And snatching a roll of tobacco, Captain Lewis threw it at Black Buffalo's feet. "Tell him there is his tobacco, on the prairie. He says he is a great chief. Among the white men great chiefs are obeyed. If he is a great chief let him order his young men to release that rope and they will obey him. But we do not believe he is a great chief. He is a squaw, and the young men laugh at him."

"Wah!" grunted Chief Black Buffalo, when he heard. He seized the tobacco and leaped from the boat, to surge for the shore. There he tumbled his young men right and left, snatched the rope and hurled it out into the water.

"Go," he bawled. Thus he proved himself to be the great chief.

The soldiers cheered. The barge's sail caught the breeze, the barge moved. Just in time Captain Clark leaped from the pirogue, into which he had transferred, and gained the gunwale, and the deck.

"Well done, Merne," he panted.