Lost with Lieutenant Pike / How from the Pawnee Village the boy named Scar Head marched with the young American Chief clear into the Snowy Mountains; how in the dead of winter they searched for the Lost River and thought that they had found it; and how the Spanish Soldiery came upon them and took them down to Santa Fé of New Mexico, where another surprise awaited them

by Edwin L. Sabin

Baroney had wished to trade for provisions and horses. Now it was afternoon, and new excitement arose. The Kansas were coming! A peace party of them had halted, out on the prairie, and had sent in one man to announce them. They had come by order of the American father, to smoke peace with the Osages.

The Osages and the Kansas had long been bitter enemies; the Pawnees, too, had lost many scalps to the Kansas, although just at present there was no war between them.

So Chief Charakterik directed that the Kansas be well received and feasted. Baroney the American interpreter took word up to the Pike camp that the Kansas were waiting.

The two American chiefs exchanged visits with Chiefs White Wolf and Rich Man, and the Kansas chiefs. In a council held the next day the Kansas principal chief, Wah-on-son-gay, and his sub-chiefs, and the Osage principal chief, Shin-ga-wa-sa or Pretty Bird, and his sub-chiefs, agreed upon paper that the nations of the Kansas and the Osage should be friends, according to the wish of their American father.

Wolf, the Pawnee, laughed.

“It will last only until spring,” he said. “Nobody can trust the Kansas; and as for those Osage, they are getting to be a nation of squaws. One-half their face is red, the other half is white. We Pawnee are all red. We are not afraid of the Kansas, and we shall not help the Americans. They are a small people of small hearts, as the Spanish chief said.”

This might appear to be the truth. Chief Charakterik was of the same opinion. He and Second Chief Iskatappe and two sub-chiefs had been invited to a feast by the American chiefs. When they returned they were scornful, although White Wolf had been given a gun with two barrels, an arm band, and other things, and the other chiefs also had been rewarded.

Scar Head heard Rich Man tell about it.

“Charakterik wore his large medal given him by the young Spanish chief. They did not ask him to take it off. They offered me a little American medal. ‘What shall I do with that?’ I asked. ‘It is not a medal for a chief. Those two young warriors who have been to Wash’ton were given bigger medals than this. Let the American father send me a chief’s medal, for I can get Spanish medals. I am not a boy.’ Yes,” continued Iskatappe, “the American nation must be very mean and stingy. They send a young man and a few soldiers, with little medals and a few poor presents, to talk with the great Pawnee nation. But the Spanish asked us to wait until next spring, when they will send us a principal chief and many more soldiers, to live near us and treat with us in honorable fashion.”

The council with the Americans had been set for the next day. The two American chiefs, and Baroney the interpreter, and the “doctor,” and a guard of soldiers, rode down. Chief Charakterik assembled four hundred warriors. The council lodge was crowded, and a throng of women and boys and girls pressed around, outside, to peer and listen. Scar Head managed to squeeze inside, to a place where he might see and hear. The Osages and the Kansas were inside, too.