It was dusk when he returned with a fat buck hanging in pieces from his saddle; he was accompanied by five or six young warriors. These young men had visited the opposite side of the river, where they had discovered a herd of bisons, and as they were hastening back to Clermont with the intelligence, they observed our trail, which they mistook for that of a Pawnee war-party, and were exerting their utmost speed homeward, when they met with our friendly Indian, who smiled when he informed us of their mistake.
The remnant of our fawn had been cooked, and was partly eaten on their arrival, when they readily accepted our invitation to partake of it. In return for which, when their meat was prepared, the whole was set before us, and they respectfully waited until we were satisfied.
We now ascertained our position with respect to the settlements. We were within about four days march of Belle Point, and the next large stream we would cross was the Verdigrise.
Previous to retiring to rest the Osages performed their vespers by chanting in a wild and melancholy { 103} tone a kind of hymn to the Master of life. Very remote lightning in the S. E. horizon.
Saturday, 2d. Our guests awakened early, and one of them, retiring a short distance from his companions, began the well-known ceremony, common to this nation, of crying aloud with a voice of lamentation, intended probably as an invocation of the departed spirit of a relative or friend.[124]
Messengers were despatched before sunrise to Clermont's camp, to inform that chief of the proximity of a party of white men on this side of the river, and of bisons on the other; and soon afterwards the remainder of our guests, with the exception of one that concluded to remain with us, departed to hunt.
Other Indians, attracted by curiosity, visited us in the course of the day, one of whom informed us, that three men, whose appearance corresponded with the description of our deserters, were now at the village; and that the approaching hunting party being already apprised of their character, Clermont, who was himself with the party, had forthwith despatched an order to the village to have them detained there until the decision of our chief respecting them should be known.