Towards evening, Sharetarish arrived with his dancers, thirty or forty in number, who were all accoutred and painted for the occasion. This exhibition, { 78} which would have appeared to us to partake much of the terrific, did we not feel assured of their pacific disposition, bore considerable resemblance to that performed by the Otoes at Engineer Cantonment, already described, excepting that less pantomimic action was used, and _striking the post_ formed no part of the ceremony. At the termination of the dance, Sharetarish presented Major O'Fallon with a painted bison robe, representing several of his own combats with the enemy, as well as those of his friends, all of which he explained to us.
27th. The tents were struck, and we departed for the village of the Pawnee Loups. At the distance of four miles, we passed the Republican village, about a mile on our left; from thence the distance is about three miles to the Loup village, over a beautiful bottom plain of the width of a mile and a half, extending along the Loup fork of the Platte. This plain is nearly thirty feet lower than that over which we had travelled, and which terminates abruptly at the Grand Pawnee village. When within two miles of the village of the Loups, a messenger requested the party to halt, in order to give the chiefs the requisite time to make their preparations to receive us in a manner suitable to the representative of a nation "so great and powerful as that of the Big-knives."
