A little above the mouth of the Sioux the Missouri makes a sudden and abrupt detour to the west, known as the Great Bend, following which our heroes were proceeding to traverse Dacotah, when, on the 25th September, a difficulty for the first time occurred with the natives, some of whom declared that the expedition should proceed no further. The large boat was waiting in the middle of the river for Captain Clarke, who had gone on shore with five of his men, when a party of Indians gathered about the small detachment with bent bows and threatening gestures. It was a critical moment, but, fortunately for the Americans, a signal given by Clarke to the soldiers in the boat was seen and understood. Twelve men jumped from it into one of the smaller boats, and, supported by this reënforcement, the Captain lowered his weapons, advanced to the leader of the Indians, and offered his hand. It was not accepted, but, surprised at this sudden movement, the Indians paused in the very act of drawing their bows to see what might be the meaning of the white man’s strange behavior. Finding his proffered hand rejected, perhaps because the red men had not yet learned the significance of its offer, Clarke turned his back on his assailants, and, surrounded by his men, walked quietly back to his boat. He was allowed to embark and put off unmolested, but before the large vessel was reached, the native warriors had decided that he was a man to be feared and courted. Four of the boldest, therefore, jumped into the Missouri, waded to the boat, and with many quaint and touching gestures offered their friendship to their white brother. It was accepted, as a matter of course; the four representatives were allowed to go up the river for some little distance in the big boat, the like of which they had never seen before; and the next day a grand meeting of the Sioux was held, at which the whites were most hospitably entertained, though most of the speeches in their honor wound up with petitions for presents. After a thorough examination of the Great Bend, which has been justly characterized as one of the most remarkable features of the Missouri, forming, as it does, a circuit of some thirty miles, Lewis and Clarke led their men in a north-westerly direction to the mouth of the Cheyenne or Skyenne, just below the 45th parallel of north latitude, where they were met by a French trader, who informed them that the previous winter he had penetrated to the Black Mountains, three hundred leagues to the westward, proving our assertion at the beginning of this chapter, that the first exploration of America was accomplished, as it were, unconsciously.