The invitation was accepted as frankly as it was given.
Baptiste shouldered the colonel’s venison, and in a short time the three rejoined Reginald’s party. Daniel Boone’s name alone was sufficient in the west to ensure him a hearty welcome. Perrot’s talents were put into immediate requisition, and ere long the game and poultry of the prairie were roasting before a capital fire, while the indefatigable Frenchman prepared the additional and unusual luxuries of hot maize–cakes and coffee.
During the repast, Reginald learnt from Colonel Boone that various parties of Indians had been lately hunting in the neighbourhood. He described most of them as friendly, and willing to trade in meat or skins for powder and lead; he believed them to belong to the Konsas, a tribe once powerful, and resident on the river called by that name, falling into the Missouri, about a hundred miles to the north–west of the place where our party were now seated; but the tribe had been of late reduced by the ravages of the small–pox, and by the incursions of the Pawnees, a nation more numerous and warlike, whose villages were situated a hundred miles higher up the same river.[23]
The colonel described the neighbourhood as abounding in elk, deer, bear, and turkeys: but he said that the beaver and the buffalo were already scarce, the great demand for their skins having caused them to be hunted quite out of the region bordering on the settlements. After spending a couple of hours agreeably with our party, the veteran sportsman shouldered his trusty rifle, and wishing our hero a successful hunt and shaking his old comrade Baptiste cordially by the hand, walked off leisurely in a northerly direction, towards his present abode; which was not, he said, so far distant but that he should easily reach it before sundown.
As the last glimpse of his retiring figure was lost in the shades of the forest, the guide uttered one of those grunts which he sometimes unconsciously indulged. Reginald knew that on these occasions there was something on his mind: and guessing that it referred to their departed guest, he said,—
“Well, Baptiste, I am really glad to have seen Daniel Boone; and I can truly say I am not disappointed; he seems to be just the sort of man that I expected to see.”
“He is a sort,” said the guide, “that we don’t see every day, Master Reginald. Perhaps he ain’t much of a talker; and he don’t use to quarrel unless there’s a reason for ‘t; but if he’s once aggravated, or if his friend’s in a scrape, he’s rather apt to be dangerous.”
“I doubt it not,” said Reginald; “there is a quiet look of resolution about him; and, in a difficulty, I would rather have one such man with me than two or three of your violent, noisy brawlers.”
As he said this his eye inadvertently rested upon the huge figure of Mike Smith, who was seated at a little distance, lazily smoking his pipe, and leaning against a log of fallen timber. The guide observed the direction of Reginald’s eye, and guessed what was passing in his mind. A grave smile stole for a moment over his features; but he made no reply, and in a few minutes, the marching orders being issued, the party resumed their journey.
On the following day they reached a point where the track branched off in two directions; the broader, and more beaten, to the N. W.; the other towards the S. W. The guide informed them that the former led along by the few scattered settlements that were already made on the southern side of the Missouri, towards the ferry and trading–post near the mouth of the Konsas river; while the smaller, and less beaten track, led towards the branch of Osage river, on which the united party of Delawares and Osages, whom they sought, were encamped.