The Captain also distinctly remembered Dr. Hayden, and related a certain incident which came very near proving disastrous to that enthusiastic explorer. Hayden was a man of rather small stature, talkative and companionable, well informed, and very energetic and eager in his work. On one occasion his devotion to his scientific pursuits came very near getting him into danger. The incident in question occurred at the site of old Fort Clark, which stood upon a high cut bank. “We laid up here for an entire day,” said the Captain in narrating this event. “The bank was full of fossils, some of them very rare. I had told Hayden of this on a former trip, and he was anxious to investigate the place. He went down under the bank, pick in hand and his rifle over his shoulder. An Aricara village was on the top, and while he was absorbed in his investigations some young bucks took it into their heads to have a little fun at his expense. They commenced pelting him with small pebbles, corncobs, etc., from the top of the bank, at the same time keeping themselves concealed from his view. For some time Hayden could not see where the missiles came from, but at length caught sight of the Indians, and instantly leveled his rifle at them. I had been a quiet spectator from the boiler deck of the boat, and quick as thought called to him to desist or he was a dead man. He lowered his gun and came on board and hunted no more fossils under that bank. If he had fired he would certainly have been killed, and as it was, the Indians were greatly incensed that he should have leveled his gun at them.” [Sidenote: A DISAGREEABLE INCIDENT.] Upon this trip a disagreeable incident happened which led Captain La Barge to leave the Company’s service for good. He had as clerk of the boat a son of one of the partners. The young man’s wife was also on board, going up for the pleasure of the voyage. La Barge had been particularly requested by the clerk’s father to use his best offices for her protection, comfort, and pleasure in the wild and lawless country to which she was going, and he promised to do so. Everything passed off pleasantly until Fort Clark was reached, when one of the partners of the Upper Missouri Outfit, the bourgeois of the post at Fort Clark, came on board to accompany the boat to Fort Union. He was naturally a rough, arrogant, blustering character, disposed to override everyone, and on two previous occasions La Barge had been compelled to deal pretty severely with him. He was, nevertheless, a man of great energy, well versed in the business of the fur trade, and a good man for the Company. He was therefore tolerated where a less capable man with his faults would have been gotten rid of. [Sidenote: INSULTING INSINUATIONS.]