At Cabanné’s post La Barge was employed in the various duties of engagé, and was frequently sent out to surrounding bands of Indians with small outfits of merchandise to trade for their furs. His most interesting and valuable experience in this line was with the Pawnees, who resided on the Loup Fork of the Platte, about one hundred miles west of the Missouri. They were what are called permanent village Indians; that is, they had fixed villages made of large, strong houses, where they regularly lived; while many of the tribes, like the Sioux, Crows, and Blackfeet, lived only in tents, and were always moving from one place to another. The Pawnees, it is true, roved about a great deal on their hunting and war expeditions, but they had a fixed place of abode to which they always returned from their wanderings. Their houses were circular in form and quite large, being sometimes sixty feet in diameter, and, to judge from pictures of them, resembled in appearance, when seen from a distance, a group of oil tanks in a modern petroleum district.
Near to their villages the Pawnees cultivated extensive fields of maize or Indian corn. After the spring planting was over they generally went on long excursions to hunt buffalo, to make war, or to secure wood and other materials for the village. Their cornfields were left to shift for themselves during this period, and their enemies sometimes took advantage of this fact; but on the whole the latter were very cautious about what they did, for they knew that the wily Pawnee would learn who the robbers were and would not fail to exact full retribution. When the corn was ripe the Indians gathered it and remained in their villages a considerable part of the winter. Their business, however, compelled them at this season to make their hunts for robes and furs, which were salable only when taken during the cold weather. When the skins were brought into the villages the squaws took them, scraped them down, rubbed them with brains or pork, and otherwise manipulated them until they were soft and flexible and ready for the trade.
The custom of the traders was to send over from their posts near the old Council Bluffs one or more clerks, with a few men and the necessary merchandise, to reside in the villages until the trade was over. The clerk generally lived in the lodge of the principal chief, kept his goods there, and also such furs as were received in trade. After the season’s business was over the furs were loaded into bullboats, in which they were floated down the Loup and the Platte rivers to the Missouri. Here they were reshipped in large cargoes to St. Louis.