[82] For Beaver Creek, see ante, note 42.—Ed.
[83] Sylvanus Fancher (called "Doctor" by courtesy) was a native of Plymouth, Connecticut. An eccentric, uneducated character, his notoriety was due to the fact that he embraced the vaccine theory before it was adopted by regular physicians. His operations in the unoccupied field of New England were for a few years remunerative; but his improvidence prevented the accumulation of a competence, and as medical men took up the practice of vaccination, his means of livelihood declined. He died in Hartford in abject poverty. See sketch in Anderson, Town and City of Waterbury, Connecticut (New Haven, 1896), iii, p. 831.—Ed.
[84] The first creek west of Beaver is Plum, so called from the abundance of wild plums growing on its banks; it is not shown on most maps. The name Creek of Souls is prophetic, as a mission station was established here in 1843. Next to Plum Creek was Council Creek, flowing south through Boone and Nance counties. Its name commemorates an Indian council held there some years later by Dougherty. The names of Plum Creek and Council Creek are sometimes interchanged. Beyond Council Creek is Cedar Creek (see ante, note 43).
The Grand Pawnee village stood about thirty miles above the mouth of Loup River, which would be between the Loup and Cedar Creek. The other villages were in the neighborhood (see ante, p. 149). Within a few years the villages were moved to or below the mouth of the Loup.—Ed.
[85] Ishcatappa; see ante, note 46.—Ed.
[86] See Appendix B.—Ed.
[87] The "Kaskaias" were closely akin to the Comanche, if not identical with them. The name is rarely used after the date of the present account, and the term Comanche is extended so as to include the Indians to which it is here applied. Jedidiah Morse, Indian commissioner, reckoned their numbers (1822) at three thousand, and located them along the base of the Rocky Mountains, in the same area over which the Comanche roamed.—Ed.
[88] The Pawnee now number about six hundred and fifty souls.—Ed.
[89] The purposes of the Yellowstone expedition included the establishment of this military post at the mouth of Minnesota River; during 1819 barracks were erected and fortifications begun.—Ed.
[90] Arctomys Ludoviciana. Ord.—This interesting and sprightly little animal has received the absurd and inappropriate name of Prairie dog, from a fancied resemblance of its warning cry to the hurried barking of a small dog. This sound may be imitated with the human voice, by the pronunciation of the syllable cheh, cheh, cheh, in a sibilated manner, and in rapid succession, by propelling the breath between the tip of the tongue and the roof of the mouth. The animal is of a light dirty reddish-brown colour above, which is intermixed with some gray, also a few black hairs. This coating of hair is of a dark lead colour next the skin, then bluish-white, then light reddish, then gray at the tip. The lower parts of the body are of a dirty white colour. The head is wide and depressed above, with large eyes; the iris is dark brown. The ears are short and truncated; the whiskers of moderate length and black; a few bristles project from the anterior portion of the superior orbit of the eye, and a few also from a wart on the cheek: the nose is somewhat sharp and compressed; the hair of the anterior legs, and that of the throat and neck, is not dusky at base. All the feet are five-toed, covered with very short hair, and armed with rather long black nails: the exterior one of the fore foot nearly attains the base of the next, and the middle one is half an inch in length: the thumb is armed with a conic nail, three-tenths of an inch in length; the tail is rather short, banded with brown near the tip, and the hair, excepting near the body, is not plumbeous at base.[91]