Happily for the main body, they found themselves at this juncture among Indians who were amicably disposed.  The lands on both sides of the Missouri in particular were owned by the Pottawottomis and Omahas, two tribes whom unjust treatment by our United States Government had the effect of rendering most hospitable to strangers whom they regarded as persecuted like themselves.

They were pleased with the Mormons.  They would have been pleased with any whites who would not cheat them, nor sell them whiskey, nor whip them for their poor gypsy habits, nor conduct themselves indecently toward their women, many of whom among the Pottawottomis—­especially those of nearly unmixed French descent—­are singularly comely, and some of them educated.  But all Indians have something like a sentiment of reverence for the insane, and admire those who sacrifice, without apparent motive, their worldly welfare to the triumph of an idea.  They understand the meaning of what they call a great vow, and think it the duty of the right-minded to lighten the votary’s penance under it.  To this feeling they united the sympathy of fellow-sufferers for those who could talk to them of their own Illinois, and tell the story of how they also had been ruthlessly expelled from it.

Their hospitality was sincere, almost delicate.  Fanny le Clerc, the spoiled child of the great brave Pied Riche, interpreter of the nation, would have the paleface Miss Devine learn duets with her on the guitar; and the daughter of substantial Joseph la Framboise, the United States interpreter for the tribe (she died of the fever that summer) welcomed all the nicest young Mormon women to a party at her father’s house, which was probably the best cabin in that village.  They made the Mormons at home, there and elsewhere.  Upon all their lands they formally gave them leave to remain as long as suited their own good pleasure.

The affair, of course, furnished material for a solemn council.  Under the auspices of an officer of the United States their chiefs were summoned, in the form befitting great occasions, to meet in the yard of a Mr. P.A.  Sarpy’s log trading-house.  They came in grand costume, moving in their fantastic attire with so much aplomb and genteel measure that the stranger found it difficult not to believe them high-born gentlemen, attending a fancy-dress ball.  Their aristocratically thin legs, of which they displayed fully the usual Indian proportion, aided this illusion.  There is something too at all times very mock-Indian in the theatrical French millinery tie of the Pottawottomi turban; while it is next to impossible for a sober white man, at first sight, to believe that the red, green, black, blue, and yellow cosmetics, with which he sees such grave personages so variously dotted, diapered, cancelled, and arabesqued are worn by them in any mood but one of the deepest and most desperate quizzing.  From the time of their first squat upon the ground to the final breaking up of the council circle they sustained their characters with equal self-possession and address.