Having travelled about twenty-five miles over this beautiful prairie, we halted on the banks of a small stream at a place called Elm Grove.[32] Here we pitched our tent, tied our horses to stakes, carried for that purpose, and after considerable difficulty having obtained fuel for a fire, cooked and ate for the first time in the Indian Territory.
At this encampment final arrangements {15} were made for our journey over the Prairies. To this end provisions, arms, ammunition, packs and pack-saddles, were overhauled, and an account taken of our common stock of goods for trade with the Indians. The result of this examination was, that we determined to remain here a while, and send back to the Kauzaus Indian mill for two hundred pounds of flour. We were induced to take this step by assurances received from certain traders whom we met coming from the mountains, that the buffalo had not advanced so far north as to furnish us with their fine hump-ribs so early by a week or fortnight as we had expected. Officers were also chosen and their powers defined; and whatever leisure we found from these duties during a stay of two days, was spent in regaling ourselves with strawberries and gooseberries, which grew in great abundance near our camp.
Our friends having returned from the mill with the flour for which they had been despatched, we left Elm Grove on the 3rd of June, travelled along the Santa Fé trail about fifteen miles, and encamped upon a high knoll, from which we had an extensive view of the surrounding plains. The grass was now about four inches in height, and {16} bent and rose in most sprightly beauty under the gusts of wind which at intervals swept over it. We remained here a day and a half, waiting for two of our number who had gone in search of a horse that had left our encampment at Elm Grove. The time, however, passed agreeably. We were, indeed, beyond the sanctuaries of society, and severed from the kind pulsations of friendship; but the spirit of the Red Man, wild and careless as the storms he buffets, began to come over us; and we shouldered our rifles and galloped away for a deer in the lines of timber that threaded the western horizon. Our first hunt in the depths of the beautiful and dreadful wilderness! It was attended with no success, however, but was worth the effort. We had begun to hunt our food.
In the afternoon of the 4th, our friends returned with the strayed animals. The keepers immediately fired the signalguns, and all were soon in camp. Our road on the 5th was through a rich, level prairie, clothed with the wild grass common to the plains of the West. A skirt of black oak timber occasionally lined the horizon or strayed up a deep ravine near the trail. The extreme care of the pioneers in the {17} overland Santa Fé trade was every where noticeable, in the fact that the track of their richly-loaded waggons never approached within musket-shot of these points of timber. Fifteen miles' march brought us to our place of encampment. A certain portion of the company allotted to that labour, unpacked the company's mules of the common-stock property, provisions, ammunitions, &c.; another portion pitched the tent; another gathered wood and kindled a fire; whilst others brought water, and still others again put seething-pots and frying-pans to their appropriate duties. So that at this, as at many a time before and after, a few minutes transposed our little cavalcade from a moving troop into an eating, drinking, and joyous camp. A thunder-storm visited us during the night. The lightning was intensely vivid, and the explosions were singularly frequent and loud. The sides of the heavens appeared to war like contending batteries in deadly conflict. The rain came in floods; and our tent, not being ditched around, was flooded soon after the commencement of the storm, and ourselves and baggage thoroughly drenched.
The next day we made about fifteen miles through the mud and rain, and stopped for {18} the night near a solitary tree upon the bank of a small tributary of the Konzas river. Here fortune favoured our fast decreasing larder. One of the company killed a turtle, which furnished us all with an excellent supper. This was the only description of game that we had seen since leaving the frontier.
On the 7th, as the sun was setting, we reached Osage River—a stream which flows into the Missouri below Jefferson City. The point where we struck it, was one hundred miles south-west of Independence.[33] We pitched our tent snugly by a copse of wood within a few yards of it; staked down our animals near at hand, and prepared, and ate in the usual form, our evening repast. Our company was divided into two messes, seven in one, and eight in the other. On the ground, each with a tin pint cup and a small round plate of the same material, the first filled with coffee, tea, or water, the last with fried bacon and dough fried in fat; each with a butcher-knife in hand, and each mess sitting, tailor-like, around its own frying-pan, eating with the appetite of tigers formed the coup-d'œil of our company at supper on the banks of the Osage.
{19} Near us were encamped some waggoners on their return to Missouri, who had been out to Council Grove with the provisions and that part of the goods of the Santa Fé traders which the teams of untrained mules had been unable to draw when they left Independence. With these men we passed a very agreeable evening; they amused us with yarns of mountain-life, which from time to time had floated in, and formed the fireside legends of that wild border. In the morning, while we were saddling our animals, two of the Kauzaus Indians came within a few rods of our camp,[34] and waited for an invitation to approach. They were armed with muskets and knives. The manner of carrying their fire-arms was peculiar, and strongly characteristic of Indian caution. The breech was held in the right hand, and the barrel rested on the left arm; thus they are always prepared to fire. They watched us narrowly, as if to ascertain whether we were friends or foes, and upon our making signs to them to approach, they took seats near the fire, and with most imperturbable calmness, commenced smoking the compound of willow-bark and tobacco with which they are wont to regale themselves. When we left the ground, one of {20} the men threw away a pair of old boots, the soles of which were fastened with iron nails. Our savage visitors seized upon them with the greatest eagerness, and in their pantomimic language, aided by harsh, guttural grunts, congratulated themselves upon becoming the possessors of so much wealth. At eight o'clock we were on march.
The morning breezes were bland, and a thousand young flowers gemmed the grassy plains. It seemed as if the tints of a brighter sky and the increasing beauty of the earth were lifting the clouds from the future, and shedding vigour upon our hopes. But this illusion lasted but a moment. Three of my valuable men had determined to accompany the waggoners to the States; and as they filed off and bade adieu to the enterprise in which they had embarked, and blighted many cheering expectations of social intercourse along our weary wayfaring to Oregon, an expression of deep discouragement shaded every face. This was of short duration. The determination to penetrate the valleys of Oregon soon swept away every feeling of depression, and two hunters being sent forward to replenish our larder, we travelled happily onward.
The Osage River at this place is one {21} hundred yards wide, with about two-and-a-half feet of water. Its banks are clothed with timber of cotton-wood, ash and hickory. We crossed it at eight o'clock in the morning, passed through the groves which border it, and continued to follow the Santa Fé trail. The portion of country over which it ran was undulating and truly beautiful; the soil rich, very deep, and intersected by three small streams, which appeared from their courses to be tributaries of the Osage.
At nightfall, we found ourselves upon a height overlooking a beautiful grove. This we supposed to be Council Grove. On the swell of the hill were the remains of an old Kauzaus' encampment; a beautiful clear spring gushed out from the rock below. The whole was so inviting to us, weary and hungry as we were, that we determined to make our bed there for the night. Accordingly, we fired signalguns for the hunters, pitched our tents, broke up the boughs which had been used by the Indians in building their wigwams, for fuel, and proceeded to cook our supper. This encampment had been made by the Kauzaus six years ago, when on their way south to their annual buffalo-hunt. A semi-circular piece of ground was enclosed by the outer lodges. {22} The area was filled with wigwams, built in straight lines, running from the diameter to the circumference. They were constructed in the following manner. Boughs of about two inches in diameter were inserted by their butts into the ground, and withed together at the top in an arched form; over these were spread blankets, skins of the buffalo, etc. Fires were built in front of each: the grass beneath, covered with skins, made a delightful couch, and the Indian's home was complete. Several yards from the outer semi-circular row of lodges and parallel to it, we found large stakes driven firmly into the earth, for the purpose of securing their horses during the night. We appropriated to ourselves, without hesitation, whatever we found here of earth, wood or water, which could be useful to us, and were soon very comfortable. About nine o'clock, our signalguns were answered by the return of our hunters. They had scoured the country all day in quest of game, but found none. Our hopes were somewhat depressed by this result. We had but one hundred pounds of flour and one side of bacon left; and the buffalo, by the best estimates we could make, were still three hundred miles distant; the country between {23} us and these animals, too, being constantly scoured by Indian hunters, afforded us but little prospect of obtaining other game. However, we did not dwell very minutely upon the evils that might await us, but having put ourselves upon short allowance, and looked at our horses as the means of preventing starvation, we sought rest for the fatigues of the next day's march.