enterprise, but launch them at once upon the perilous plains of the Far
West.




2.

Departure from--Fort Osage--Modes of transportation--Pack-
horses--Wagons--Walker and Cerre; their characters--Buoyant
feelings on launching upon the prairies--Wild equipments of
the trappers--Their gambols and antics--Difference of
character between the American and French trappers--Agency
of the Kansas--General--Clarke--White Plume, the Kansas
chief--Night scene in a trader's camp--Colloquy between--
White Plume and the captain--Bee-hunters--Their
expeditions--Their feuds with the Indians--Bargaining talent
of White Plume


IT WAS ON THE FIRST of May, 1832, that Captain Bonneville took his
departure from the frontier post of Fort Osage, on the Missouri. He had
enlisted a party of one hundred and ten men, most of whom had been
in the Indian country, and some of whom were experienced hunters and
trappers. Fort Osage, and other places on the borders of the western
wilderness, abound with characters of the kind, ready for any
expedition.

The ordinary mode of transportation in these great inland expeditions
of the fur traders is on mules and pack-horses; but Captain Bonneville