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[5] These three young men, with eight or ten others, were sent out by the order of the Black Dog and the other chiefs, with the regiment of dragoons, as guides and hunters, for the expedition to the Camanchees, an account of which will be found in the following pages.
I was a fellow-traveller and hunter with these young men for several months, and therefore have related in the following pages some of the incidents of our mutual exploits whilst in the Camanchee country.
LETTER—No. 39.
MOUTH OF FALSE WASHITA, RED RIVER.
Under the protection of the United States dragoons, I arrived at this place three days since, on my way again in search of the “Far West.” How far I may this time follow the flying phantom, is uncertain. I am already again in the land of the buffaloes and the fleet-bounding antelopes; and I anticipate, with many other beating hearts, rare sport and amusement amongst the wild herds ere long.
We shall start from hence in a few days, and other epistles I may occasionally drop you from terra incognita, for such is the great expanse of country which we expect to range over; and names we are to give, and country to explore, as far as we proceed. We are, at this place, on the banks of the Red River, having Texas under our eye on the opposite bank. Our encampment is on the point of land between the Red and False Washita rivers, at their junction; and the country about us is a panorama too beautiful to be painted with a pen: it is, like most of the country in these regions, composed of prairie and timber, alternating in the most delightful shapes and proportions that the eye of a connoisseur could desire. The verdure is everywhere of the deepest green, and the plains about us are literally speckled with buffalo. We are distant from Fort Gibson about 200 miles, which distance we accomplished in ten days.
A great part of the way, the country is prairie, gracefully undulating—well watered, and continually beautified by copses and patches of timber. On our way my attention was rivetted to the tops of some of the prairie bluffs, whose summits I approached with inexpressible delight. I rode to the top of one of these noble mounds, in company with my friends Lieut. Wheelock and Joseph Chadwick, where we agreed that our horses instinctively looked and admired. They thought not of the rich herbage that was under their feet, but, with deep-drawn sighs, their necks were loftily curved, and their eyes widely stretched over the landscape that was beneath us. From this elevated spot, the horizon was bounded all around us by mountain streaks of blue, softening into azure as they vanished, and the pictured vales that intermediate lay, were deepening into green as the eye was returning from its roamings. Beneath us, and winding through the waving landscape was seen with peculiar effect, the “bold dragoons,” marching in beautiful order forming a train of a mile in length. Baggage waggons and Indians (engagés) helped to lengthen the procession. From the point where we stood, the line was seen in miniature; and the undulating hills over which it was bending its way, gave it the appearance of a huge black snake gracefully gliding over a rich carpet of green.
This picturesque country of 200 miles, over which we have passed, belongs to the Creeks and Choctaws, and affords one of the richest and most desirable countries in the world for agricultural pursuits.