6 December: In the morning there was deep snow, at the same time strong wind out of west hora 7 north. It had blown all night long. Yesterday evening the snow had started by seven o’clock. It was not cold this morning. At seven thirty, 27°F [−2.8°C]. In the evening we had talked with Charbonneau about the danger [caused by] the Indians and had agreed that, among all of them in this area, the Mandans are still the best.

Despite that, they have shot people here in the fort. One time Mr. Kipp sat with Lamont in front of the fireplace in the evening when a shot went over the pickets of the fort (which had been closed long before) [and] through the window—the bullet went between them into the wall. Often there were disagreements with individual Indians that might have easily come to a bad end. It is always dangerous to be among coarse people possessed by superstitious ideas. The location of Fort Clark is especially precarious, because there are permanent Indian villages here that [their] enemies like to [search out and] besiege. Several white men have been shot here already. The number of white men shot yearly by Blackfoot in the Rocky Mountains is by far larger. Last year they shot fifty-six, every year about the same number; a few years earlier, more than eighty white men.

Belhumeur talked about a skirmish he had participated in at the Yellowstone against the Blackfoot. They [numbered] thirty-seven men. The Blackfoot surrounded them in a narrow pass and killed seven of them; they killed some thirty Indians. They fought their way through. Jonquá jumped with his horse from a high cliff into the Missouri, after he had been wounded in the back, and got away. If this is true as told, then the jump was indeed remarkable; it was said to have been 80 to 100 feet, and the horse was only injured a little in the back. He soon reached the area of the Crows, [who] came immediately to look for the Blackfoot, found the dead, and took their scalps.[Page 3:48]

It continued to snow this morning after seven and eight o’clock, and the wind whipped the snow; this lasted all day long. Síh-Chidä had his picture drawn, his whole figure. I took care of my correspondence. Charbonneau went in the midmorning to Durand in the lower forest village of the Mandans. At twelve o’clock, 33°F [0.6°C]. The wind same as in the morning and very strong. It was scarcely possible to look around on the prairie. We hoped very much for the approach of the buffalo herds. In the afternoon it stopped snowing, but [the] penetrating cold wind kept on blowing. Mató-Tópe visited us and viewed the drawing of Síh-Chidä with great interest. Both returned in the evening to their forest village. The night was dark, the sky cloudy, the wind blew strong, and it still continued to snow in the evening.