On the morning of the 12th our cannon, muskets and rifles were loaded with ball, because we were approaching the village of the hostile Arikkaras. We came to Grand River, called in Lewis and Clarke's map Wetarko River. As we here touched the bottom, we crossed to the east bank, and in half an hour reached Rampart River, which issues from a narrow chain of hills, called Les Remparts; and soon afterwards an island covered with willows, which, on the large special map of Lewis and Clarke, has an Arikkara village, of which there are now no traces. From the hills we had a fine prospect over the bend of the river, on which the villages of the Arikkaras are situated, and which we reached after a short run of only two miles. The two villages of this tribe are on the west bank, very near each other, but separated by a small stream. They consist of a great number of clay huts, round at the top, with a square entrance in front, and the whole surrounded with a fence of stakes, which were much decayed, and in many places thrown down. It was not quite a year since these villages had been wholly abandoned, because their inhabitants, who were extremely hostile to the Whites, killed so many Americans, that they themselves foresaw that they would be severely chastised by the United States, and therefore preferred to emigrate. To this cause was added, a dry, unproductive season, when the crops entirely failed; as well as the absence of the herds of buffaloes, which hastened their removal.... The principal chief of the Arikkaras, when they retired from the Missouri, was called Starapat (the little hawk, with bloody claws)." (Maximilian, (1), pp. 166-167.) The Arikara at this time appear to have left the banks of the Missouri and removed to the vicinity of the Pawnee. Fort Clark, on the upper Missouri, at the villages of the Mandan and Hidatsa, was erected by the American Fur Company during the year 1829. In 1837 the Mandans suffered from the dreaded smallpox, losing more than 90 per cent of their number, and the few who survived abandoned their large village below Fort Clark and settled a short distance above. And, so wrote Hayden in 1855, "About the time that the Mandans left the lower village, the Arikaras came and took possession, the former readily consenting to this arrangement, because it placed a large body of strangers between them and the Dakotas, with whom, in their now feeble state, they were unable to contend." (Hayden, (1), p. 434.)