"What's your _name_, any how?" was the courteous salutation of mine host, as I placed my foot across his threshold, after attending to the necessities of the faithful animal which had been my companion through the fatigues of the day. He was a dark-browed, swarthy-looking man, with exceedingly black hair, and an eye which one might have suspected of Indian origin but for the genuine cunning {35}--the "lurking devil"--of its expression. Replying to the unceremonious interrogatory with a smile, which by no means modified the haughty moroseness of my landlord's visage, another equally civil query was proposed, to which I received the hurried reply, "Jean Paul de --." From this _amiable_ personage I learned, by dint of questioning, that the village of Portage des Sioux had been standing about half a century: that it was originally settled by a colony from Cahokia: that its importance now was as considerable as it ever had been: that it was terribly shaken in the great earthquakes of 1811, many of the old cottages having been thrown down and his own house rent from "turret to foundation-stone"--the chasm in the brick wall yet remaining--and, finally, that the village owed its name to the stratagem of a band of Sioux Indians, in an expedition against the Missouris. The legend is as follows: "The Sioux being at war with a tribe of the Missouris, a party descended the Upper Mississippi on an expedition for pillage. The Missouris, apprized of their approach, laid in ambush in the woods at the mouth of the river, intending to take their enemies by surprise as their canoes doubled the point to ascend. The Sioux, in the depths of Indian subtlety, apprehending such a manoeuvre, instead of descending to the confluence, landed at the portage, took their canoes upon their backs, and crossed the prairie to the Indian village on the Missouri, several miles above. By this stratagem the design of their expedition was accomplished, and they had returned to their canoes in safety with their plunder long {36} before the Missouris, who were anxiously awaiting them at their ambuscade, were aware of their first approach."