51�Թ�

We took this opportunity of sending letters to Europe: the Assiniboin was assigned us for the continuation of the voyage.

The Assiniboin had already taken our baggage on board, but still lay on the east bank, for an attempt to bring it over to our side had failed, because the water was too low.

They paid a visit first to the Assiniboin, and then to Mr. Laidlow, who gave them food and tobacco.

While Messrs. Mc Kenzie, Sandford, and Mitchell took up their abode in the fort, we went on board the Assiniboin, from which I made, on the 4th of June, an interesting excursion into the prairie, in order to make myself acquainted with the eastern bank.

Reminiscences of this warlike experience came to him twenty years later in the Missouri wilderness, when he notes that the song of the Assiniboin warriors before Fort McKenzie resembled that of the Russian soldiers heard in the winter of 1813-14.