On our way to this place, my English companion and myself were arrested by a rascally band of the Sioux, and held in _durance vile_, for having dared to approach the sacred _fountain of the pipe_! While we had halted at the trading-hut of “Le Blanc,” at a place called _Traverse des Sioux_, on the St. Peters river, and about 150 miles from the Red Pipe, a murky cloud of dark-visaged warriors and braves commenced gathering around the house, closing and cramming all its avenues, when one began his agitated and insulting harangue to us, announcing to us in the preamble, that we were prisoners, and could not go ahead. About twenty of them spoke in turn; and we were doomed to sit nearly the whole afternoon, without being allowed to speak a word in our behalf, until they had all got through. We were compelled to keep our seats like culprits, and hold our tongues, till all had brandished their fists in our faces, and vented all the threats and invective which could flow from Indian malice, grounded on the presumption that we had come to trespass on their dearest privilege,—their religion. There was some allowance to be made, and some excuse, surely, for the rashness of these poor fellows, and we felt disposed to pity, rather than resent, though their _unpardonable stubbornness_ excited us almost to desperation. Their superstition was sensibly touched, for we were persisting, in the most peremptory terms, in the determination to visit this, their greatest medicine (mystery) place; where, it seems, they had often resolved no white man should ever be allowed to go. They took us to be “officers sent by Government to see what this place was worth,” &c. As “this red stone was a part of their flesh,” it would be sacrilegious for white man to touch or take it away—“a hole would be made in their flesh, and the blood could never be made to stop running.” My companion and myself were here in a _fix_, one that demanded the use of every energy we had about us; astounded at so unexpected a rebuff, and more than ever excited to go ahead, and see what was to be seen at this strange place; in this emergency, we mutually agreed to go forward, even if it should be at the hazard of our lives; we heard all they had to say, and then made our own speeches—and at length had our horses brought, which we mounted and rode off without further molestation; and having arrived upon this interesting ground, have found it quite equal in interest and beauty to our sanguine expectations, abundantly repaying us for all our trouble in traveling to it.