The land before us lay flat and low, with the golden sun of the early
afternoon resting hot upon it, revealing each detail in an animated
panorama wherein barbarism and civilization each bore a conspicuous
part. The Fort was fully a mile and a half distant, and I could
distinguish little of its outward appearance, save that it seemed low
and solidly built, like a stockade of logs set upon end in the ground.
It appeared gloomy, grim, inhospitable, with its gates tightly closed,
and no sign of life anywhere along its dull walls; yet my heart was
thrilled at catching the bright colors of the garrison flag as the
western breeze rippled its folds against the blue background of the sky.

But it was outside those log barriers that our eyes encountered scenes
of the greatest interest,--a mingling of tawdry decoration and wild
savagery, where fierce denizens of forest and plain made their barbaric
show.

No finer stage for such a spectacle could well be conceived. Upon one
side stretched the great waste of waters; on the other, level plains,
composed of yellow sand quickly merging into the green and brown of the
prairie, while, scattered over its surface, from the near lake-shore to
the distant river, were figures constantly moving, decked in gay
feathers and daubed with war-paint. Westward from the Fort, toward the
point where a branch of the main river appeared to emerge from the
southward, stood a large village of tepees, the sun shining yellow and
white on their deerskin coverings and making an odd glow in the smoke
that curled above the lodge-poles. From where we rode it looked to be
a big encampment, alive with figures of Indians. My companion and I
both noted, and spoke together of the fact, that they all seemed
braves; squaws there may have been, but of children there were none
visible.