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 VII

SNUG IN WINTER QUARTERS

The weather had grown much colder, with squalls of snow and sleet and high winds; the wild geese were flying high, headed into the south; and the river, falling rapidly, was split with bars and narrow channels, when, two weeks after the punishment of John Newman, the barge and the two pirogues anchored off the first of the Mandan villages, in the centre of present North Dakota.

"Five long months we've been travelin', an' for sixteen hundred crooked miles," quoth Patrick Gass. "Sure we desarve a bit o' rist. Now what will the Mandans say, I wonder?"

"Did you see that young fellow who'd lost the halves of two fingers?" queried George Shannon. "Well, he'd cut 'em off, on purpose, because some of his relatives had died! That's the Mandan way of going into mourning."

"'Twould be better to cut the hair, I'm thinkin'," said Pat. "They most of 'em nade it—an' hair'll grow again."

The Mandans had swarmed aboard, and were examining every object with much curiosity. They were an odd people, wrinkled and of low stature—many of the women with brown hair, but others with gray hair