The great river meandered south and east through a wide and lush valley. Many times I saw vast herds of bison that took little notice of my presence. One morning I woke to see the river covered in white from bank to bank, as if a great snow pack had broken loose upstream, but on closer examination found the stuff to be great clumps of white feathers. As I stared at this wonderous sight, I heard a loud brawl of squawking voices from upstream. As I sat on the sunlit gravel beach, a huge flock of egrets floated into my view, busy in preening away their winter feathers. This flock was some minutes in passing downstream.

I had packed up my camp and was preparing to depart as the sound of the egrets faded from my hearing, when suddenly I became aware of another combination of sounds : The steady plop of a canoe blade in the water, and the sound of two voices, one low and rumbling and occasionally bursting out in song, the other high and carping, seeming to complain about the singing of the first. I couldn't make out what the voices were saying, being in a strange kind of coughing-spitting language, but I still remember the words and melody of the song...

O do ye remember sweet Betsy from Pike
who crossed the wide prairie with her husband Ike
with one yoke of oxen and one spotted hog
a tall shanghai rooster and an old yaller dog

I led my pony behind some cottonwood trees, and squatted in the shadows as a canoe made of shiny black cloth slid into the waters before me. I was surprised to see that there was but one figure seated in the stern of the canoe, the rest of the craft taken up with a great pile of beaver pelts. This boat led another in its wake by a short rope, and that canoe too was piled with fur. The figure itself seemed to be nothing more than a pile of pelts, with a sort of dirty blue hat on its peak. The canoe emrged from the tree shadows into the sun, and at that moment it ceased singing, and began to berate itself in the other, the high complaining voice, and as it changed tones, it looked more or less in my direction, and I saw a bulbous red nose, a mouthful of scarce and irregular teeth, and a pair of crazy and sparkling blue eyes, shining out from a coat of fur, and wild shaggy hair that covered the head, ears, and most of the face.

Without thinking, I shouted out a word I had learned long ago from my Father, the only word I knew that this man might comprehend..."Friend!" I yelled. This brought both voices to a halt, and the strange figure looked directly at me, stopped paddling, then smiled and steered the boats onto the beach. Several joints in the man's body snapped loudly as he clambered out of the canoe, made the bowline fast to a branch, turned and began to dance there on the bank in a rather demented fashion. I clutched the medal Lewis and Clark had given my Father, glanced at it, and decided that, although this weird gnomish figure cavorting in front of me bore little resemblance to the noble personage on the medal, that he was indeed a white man. He stopped dancing with a flourish, slapping both thighs, clapping his hands together, and then extending his grimy right paw.

"Friend it is, and friend it'll be!" He laughed. With some reluctance I also extended my hand, which he grasped with vigor, pointing at his chest and saying "Cletus Smythe!! Friend!" This he said using the brash baritone voice, but topping it off with a quick burst from the carping voice, which added "ye black-hearted Heathen!"