On the 1st of July we arrived at Bent's fort, about 70 miles below the
mouth of the _Fontaine-qui-bouit_. As we emerged into view from the
groves on the river, we were saluted with a display of the national
flag, and repeated discharges from the guns of the fort, where we were
received by Mr. George Bent with a cordial welcome and a friendly
hospitality, in the enjoyment of which we spent several very agreeable
days. We were now in the region where our mountaineers were accustomed
to live; and all the dangers and difficulties of the road being
considered past, four of them, including Carson and Walker, remained at
the fort.
On the 5th we resumed our journey down the Arkansas, traveling along a
broad wagon-road, and encamped about 20 miles below the fort. On the
way we met a very large village of Sioux and Cheyenne Indians, who,
with the Arapahoes were returning from the crossing of the Arkansas,
where they had been to meet the Kioway and Camanche Indians. A few days
previous they had massacred a party of fifteen Delawares, whom they had
discovered in a fort on the Smoky Hill river, losing in the affair
several of their own people. They were desirous that we should bear a
pacific message to the Delawares on the frontier, from whom they
expected retaliation; and we passed through them without any difficulty
or delay. Dispersed over the plain in scattered bodies of horsemen, and
family groups of women and children, with dog-trains carrying baggage,
and long lines of pack-horses, their appearance was picturesque and
imposing.
Agreeably to your instructions, which required me to complete, as far
as practicable, our examinations of the Kansas, I left at this
encampment the Arkansas river, taking a northeasterly direction across
the elevated dividing grounds which separate that river from the waters
of the Platte. On the 7th we crossed a large stream, about forty yards
wide, and one or two feet deep, flowing with a lively current on a
sandy bed. The discolored and muddy appearance of the water indicated
that it proceeded from recent rains; and we are inclined to consider
this a branch of the Smoky Hill river, although, possibly, it may be
the Pawnee fork of the Arkansas. Beyond this stream we traveled over
high and level prairies, halting at small ponds and holes of water, and
using for our fires the _bois de vache_, the country being without
timber. On the evening of the 8th we encamped in a cottonwood grove on
the banks of a sandy stream-bed, where there was water in holes
sufficient for the camp. Here several hollows, or dry creeks with sandy
beds, met together, forming the head of a stream which afterwards
proved to be the Smoky Hill fork of the Kansas river.
The next morning, as we were leaving our encampment, a number of
Arapahoe Indians were discovered. They belonged to a war-party which
had scattered over the prairie in returning from an expedition against
the Pawnees.
As we traveled down the valley, water gathered rapidly in the sandy bed
from many little tributaries; and at evening it had become a handsome
stream, fifty to eighty feet in width, with a lively current in small
channels, the water being principally dispersed among quicksands.
Gradually enlarging, in a few days' march it became a river eighty
yards in breadth, wooded with occasional groves of cottonwood. Our road
was generally over level uplands bordering the river, which were
closely covered with a sward of buffalo-grass.
On the 10th we entered again the buffalo range, where we had found
these animals so abundant on our outward journey, and halted for a day
among numerous herds, in order to make a provision of meat sufficient
to carry us to the frontier.
A few days afterwards, we encamped, in a pleasant evening, on a high
river prairie, the stream being less than a hundred yards broad. During
the night we had a succession of thunder-storms, with heavy and
continuous rain, and towards morning the water suddenly burst over the
bank, flooding the bottoms and becoming a large river, five or six
hundred yards in breadth. The darkness of the night and incessant rain
had concealed from the guard the rise of the water; and the river broke
into the camp so suddenly, that the baggage was instantly covered, and
all our perishable collections almost entirely ruined, and the hard
labor of many months destroyed in a moment.
On the 17th we discovered a large village of Indians encamped at the
mouth of a handsomely wooded stream on the right bank of the river.
Readily inferring, from the nature of the encampment, that they were
Pawnee Indians, and confidently expecting good treatment from a people
who receive regularly an annuity from the government, we proceeded
directly to the village, where we found assembled nearly all the Pawnee
tribe, who were now returning from the crossing of the Arkansas, where
they had met the Kioway and Camanche Indians. We were received by them
with the unfriendly rudeness and characteristic insolence which they
never fail to display whenever they find an occasion for doing so with
impunity. The little that remained of our goods was distributed among
them, but proved entirely insufficient to satisfy their greedy
rapacity; and, after some delay, and considerable difficulty, we
succeeded in extricating ourselves from the village, and encamped on
the river about 15 miles below.
[Footnote: In a recent report to the department, from Major Wharton,
who visited the Pawnee villages with a military force some months
afterwards, it is stated that the Indians had intended to attack our
party during the night we remained at this encampment, but were
prevented by the interposition of the Pawnee Loups.]
The country through which we had been traveling since leaving the
Arkansas river, for a distance of 260 miles, presented to the eye only
a succession of far-stretching green prairies, covered with the
unbroken verdure of the buffalo-grass, and sparingly wooded along the
streams with straggling trees and occasional groves of cottonwood; but
here the country began perceptibly to change its character, becoming a
more fertile, wooded, and beautiful region, covered with a profusion of
grasses, and watered with innumerable little streams, which were wooded
with oak, large elms, and the usual varieties of timber common to the
lower course of the Kansas river.
As we advanced, the country steadily improved, gradually assimilating
itself in appearance to the northwestern part of the state of Missouri.
The beautiful sward of the buffalo-grass, which is regarded as the best
and most nutritious found on the prairies, appeared now only in
patches, being replaced by a longer and coarser grass, which covered
the face of the country luxuriantly. The difference in the character of
the grasses became suddenly evident in the weakened condition of our
animals, which began sensibly to fail as soon as we quitted the
buffalo-grass.
The river preserved a uniform breadth of eighty or a hundred yards,
with broad bottoms continuously timbered with large cottonwood-trees,
among which were interspersed a few other varieties.
While engaged in crossing one of the numerous creeks which frequently
impeded and checked our way, sometimes obliging us to ascend them for
several miles, one of the people (Alexis Ayot) was shot through the leg
by the accidental discharge of a rifle--a mortifying and painful
mischance, to be crippled for life by an accident, after having nearly
accomplished in safety a long and eventful journey. He was a young man
of remarkably good and cheerful temper, and had been among the useful
and efficient men of the party.
After having traveled directly along its banks for 290 miles, we left
the river, where it bore suddenly off in a northwesterly direction,
towards its junction with the Republican fork of the Kansas, distant
about 60 miles; and, continuing our easterly course, in about 20 miles
we entered the wagon-road from Santa Fé to Independence, and on the
last day of July encamped again at the little town of Kansas, on the
banks of the Missouri river.
During our protracted absence of 14 months, in the course of which we
had necessarily been exposed to great varieties of weather and of
climate, not one case of sickness had ever occurred among us.
Here ended our land journey; and the day following our arrival, we
found ourselves on board a steamboat rapidly gliding down the broad
Missouri. Our travel-worn animals had not been sold and dispersed over
the country to renewed labor, but were placed at good pasturage on the
frontier, and are now ready to do their part in the coming expedition.
On the 6th of August we arrived at St. Louis, where the party was
finally disbanded, a great number of the men having their homes in the
neighborhood.
Andreas Fuentes also remained here, having readily found employment for
the winter, and is one of the men engaged to accompany me the present
year.
Pablo Hernandez remains in the family of Senator Benton, where he is
well taken care of, and conciliates good-will by his docility,
intelligence, and amiability. General Almonte, the Mexican minister at
Washington, to whom he was of course made known, kindly offered to take
charge of him, and to carry him back to Mexico; but the boy preferred
to remain where he was until he got an education, for which he shows
equal ardor and aptitude.
Our Chinook Indian had his wish to see the whites fully gratified. He
accompanied me to Washington, and, after remaining several months at
the Columbia College, was sent by the Indian department to
Philadelphia, where, among other things, he learned to read and write
well, and speak the English language with some fluency. He will
accompany me in a few days to the frontier of Missouri, where he will
be sent with some one of the emigrant companies to the village at the
Dalles of the Columbia.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant, J. C. FREMONT, _Bt. Capt.
Topl. Engineers_.
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