to him a package of arsenic. Blackbird and Big Elk's father went to St. Louis in the days of the French and made a treaty. A portrait of the chief was then painted that is said to hang now in the Louvre at Paris.
A delegation of Otoes had been persuaded to come up and smoke the peace-pipe with the Omahas. But not an Omaha appeared. And the Otoes, released from overwhelming fear, Big Horse and Little Thief, Big Ox and Iron Eyes, smoked and danced on the old council ground of their enemies, whose scalps they had vowed to hang at their saddle bow.
Sergeant Floyd danced with the rest that hot August night, and became overheated. He went on guard duty immediately afterward, and lay down on a sandbar to cool. In a few moments he was seized with frightful pains.
Nathaniel Pryor awakened the Captains.
"My cousin is very ill."
All night Lewis and Clark used every endeavour to relieve the suffering soldier. At sunrise the boats set sail, bearing poor Floyd, pale and scarce breathing. There was a movement of the sick boy's lips,—
"I am going away. I want you to write me a letter."
And there, on the borders of Iowa, he dispatched his last message to the old Kentucky home. When they landed for dinner Floyd died.
With streaming tears Patrick Gass, the warm-hearted, made a strong coffin of oak slabs. A detail of brother soldiers bore the body to the top of the bluff and laid it there with the honours of war, the first United States soldier to be buried beyond the Mississippi, and on a cedar post they carved his name.
With measured tread and slow the soldiers came down and camped on Floyd's River below, in the light of the setting sun.
Years passed. Around that lovely height, Floyd's Bluff, Sioux City grew. Travellers passed that way and said, "Yonder lies Charles Floyd on the bluff." Relic hunters chipped away the cedar post. Finally, the Missouri undermined the height, and the oakwood
