I expected to take at Benton a steamboat to Fort Stevenson, a military post which had been established about eighty miles south of Fort Buford, near a settlement of friendly Mandan and Arickaree Indians, to protect them from the hostile Sioux.

From there I was to make my way overland, first to Fort Totten near Devil's lake in Dakota, and thence by way of Fort Abercrombie to Saint Cloud, Minnesota, the terminus of the railroad.
Luckily I met with no delay in getting a boat at Benton, and though the water was extremely low, we steamed down the channel of the Missouri with but slight detention till we got within fifty miles of Fort Buford.

Here we struck on a sandbar with such force of steam and current as to land us almost out of the water from stem to midships.

This bad luck was tantalizing, for to land on a bar when your boat is under full headway down-stream in the Missouri River is no trifling matter, especially if you want to make time, for the rapid and turbid stream quickly depositing sand under the hull, makes it commonly a task of several days to get your boat off again.

As from our mishap the loss of much time was inevitable, I sent a messenger to Fort Buford for a small escort, and for horses to take my party in to the post.