CHAPTER II

Scarcity of Food--An Incident--Looing and Bleating--Messrs. Bents--Trade--Little Arkansas--A Nauseous Meal--A Flood--An Onset--A Hard Ride--The Deliverance--The Arkansas--An Attack--The Similitude of Death--The Feast and a bit of Philosophy--The Traders Walworth and Alvarez's Teams--A Fright--A Nation of Indians--Their Camp and Hunts--A Treaty--A Tempest--Indian Butchering--A Hunt among the Buffalo--A Wounded Man--A Drive--A Storm and its Enemy--Night among the Buffalo--The Country and the Heavens--The Ford--A Mutiny and its Consequences--Blistered Fingers--Liberty--Bent's Fort--Disbanding 69

{xxii} CHAPTER III

The Great Prairie Wilderness--Its Rivers and Soil--Its People and their Territories--Choctaws--Chickasaws--Cherokees--Creeks--Senecas and Shawnees--Seminoles--Pottawatamies--Weas--Pionkashas--Peorias and Kaskaskias--Ottowas--Shawnees or Shawanoes--Delawares--Kausaus--Kickapoos--Sauks and Foxes--Iowas--Otoes--Omehas--Puncahs--Pawnees, remnants--Carankauas--Cumanche, remnants--Knistineaux--Naudowisses or Sioux--Chippeways, and their traditions 108