They proved to be two chiefs of the very war party that had brought Messrs.
Crooks and M'Lellan to a stand two years before, and obliged them to escape down the river.

They ran to embrace these gentlemen, as if delighted to meet with them; yet they evidently feared some retaliation of their past misconduct, nor were they quite at ease until the pipe of peace had been smoked.
Mr.Hunt having been informed that the tribe to which these men belonged had killed three white men during the preceding summer, reproached them with the crime, and demanded their reasons for such savage hostility.
"We kill white men," replied one of the chiefs, "because white men kill us.

That very man," added he, pointing to Carson, one of the new recruits, "killed one of our brothers last summer.

The three white men were slain to avenge his death." Their chief was correct in his reply.

Carson admitted that, being with a party of Arickaras on the banks of the Missouri, and seeing a war party of Sioux on the opposite side, he had fired with his rifle across.