As dark clouds of intrigue were settling over the Corps of Discovery, the hardy troops continued their journey up the Missouri. Summer found them approaching the land of the Lakotas or Sioux, even then acknowledged to be the warrior kings of the Great Plains. Before the expedition had set out, Jefferson had written of the Lakotas, ‘On that nation we wish most particularly to make a friendly impression because of their immense power.’

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Just as the encounter with the Lakotas was about to take place, another incident occurred that served to reinforce military discipline just as it would be needed the most. On August 4, a trooper named Moses Reed deserted reportedly ‘under pretense of recovering a knife which he had dropped a short distance behind!’ This was no time to allow control to grow slack. Therefore, according to the journal of Patrick Gass, ‘Four of our people were dispatched to the Oro nation of Indians [whom the men had just visited]‘ to hunt for the deserter Reed.

Fortunately for Reed, he was apprehended without offering any resistance. Clark noted we ‘only sentenced him to run the gauntlet four times through the party,’ after which Reed was expelled from the Corps and put to work as a laborer on the pirogues.

At the end of a hot August, the meeting with Lakotas took place in modern-day Knox County, Neb. The Lakotas had been invited to the council by Sergeant Nathaniel Pryor and Pierre Dorion, a French Canadian interpreter who had lived for many years among them. On August 30, the chiefs and their warriors arrived at 12 o’clock, under a large oak tree, near which flew the flag of the United States.

After a speech by Lewis, the two commanders acknowledged the chiefs by giving the grand chief, Weucha, or Shake Hand, a flag, a medal, a certificate and a string of wampum. To emphasize the American military presence, they also bestowed on Weucha a richly laced uniform of the US. artillery corps, with a cocked hat and red feather, to replace the military emblems of officer rank that the British had previously given to such chieftains. The height of the ceremony came when the leaders smoked the long-stemmed peace pipe, or calumet. So impressed were Lewis and Clark that they christened the spot Calumet Bluffs.

The first meeting with the Lakotas had gone exceedingly well for the soldierexplorers. One reason, recalled Private Joseph Whitehouse, was the fact that Lewis gave a demonstration of their experimental air gun, which was fired by air stored under pressure in the gun’s butt.

Although the conference with the Lakotas had been a success, more meetings with Lakota clans–and other tribes as well–would lie ahead of them. One month later, the Corps of Discovery encountered a clan of Lakotas who had an unsavory reputation of menacing parties of traders. Interpreter Pierre Dorion had been one such trader, so the soldiers knew what to expect. On September 25, in the wilderness of what is now South Dakota, near the capital of Pierre, they met Tortohonga, the chief known as the Partisan.

After the usual opening pleasantries, the partisans follower suddenly turned on the whites on the banks of the Bad River. As the journal retold the incident, ‘They at last accompanied Captain Clark on shore in a pirogue with five men; but it seems they had formed a design to stop us; for no sooner had the party landed than three of the Indians seized the cable of the pirogue, and one of the [warriors] of the chief put his arms around the mast. The second chief, who affected intoxication, then said that we should not go on, that they had not received presents enough from us. Captain Clark told them that we would not be prevented from going on; that we were not squaws, but warriors; that we were sent by our great father, who could in a moment exterminate them.’

The chief replied that he, too, had warriors, and proceeded to threaten personal violence to Clark, who immediately drew his sword and made a signal to the boat to prepare for action. The troopers, who had donned their military uniforms to overawe the Indians, found themselves in the middle of danger. The Indians who surrounded Clark drew their arrows from their quivers and were bending their bows when the swivel gun in the boat was pointed toward them, and 12 determined men jumped into the pirogue to join Clark.

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