prepared to decorate his brows, and eagle’s plumes and calumets were in readiness for him—his enemies wore on their faces a silent gloom and hatred; and his old sweethearts who had cast him off, gazed intensely upon him, as they glowed with the burning fever of repentance. During all this excitement, Wak-a-dah-ha-hee (or the white buffalo’s hair) kept his position, assuming the most commanding and threatening attitudes; brandishing his shield in the direction of the thunder, although there was not a cloud to be seen, until he (poor fellow) being elevated above the rest of the village, espied, to his inexpressible amazement, the steamboat ploughing its way up the windings of the river below, puffing her steam from her pipes, and sending forth the thunder from a twelve-pounder on her deck. ‘The white Buffalo’s hair’ stood motionless, and turned pale; he looked awhile, and turned to the chief and to the multitude, and addressed them with a trembling lip—‘My friends, we will get no rain!—there are, you see, no clouds; but my medicine is great—I have brought a _thunder-boat_! look and see it! the thunder you hear is out of her mouth, and the lightning which you see is on the waters!’ “At this intelligence, the whole village flew to the tops of their wigwams, or to the bank of the river, from whence the steamer was in full view, and ploughing along to their utter dismay and confusion. In this promiscuous throng, chiefs, doctors, women, children, and dogs, were mingled, Wak-a-dah-ha-hee having descended from his high place to mingle with the frightened throng. Dismayed at the approach of so strange and unaccountable an object, the Mandans stood their ground but a few moments; when, by an order of the chiefs, all hands were ensconced within the piquets of their village, and all the warriors armed for desperate self-defence. A few moments brought the boat in front of the village, and all was still and quiet as death; not a Mandan was to be seen upon the banks. The steamer was moored, and three or four of the chiefs soon after walked boldly down the bank, and on to her deck, with a spear in one hand, and a calumet, or pipe of peace in the other. The moment they stepped on board, they met (to their great surprise and joy) their old friend Major Sanford, their agent, which circumstance put an instant end to all their fears.” It was long, however, before the rain-maker could be persuaded to come forward, or to listen to the assurance that his medicine had nothing whatever to do with the arrival of the ship. Unwilling to lose the fame of having produced such a phenomenon, he continued to assert that he knew of its coming, and by his magic had caused it to approach. But he was little regarded in the universal bustle and gossip which was going on respecting the mysteries of the “thunder-boat.”