hunt the buffaloe; but as we discovered some hunter's tracks, and
observed the plains on fire in the direction of their villages, we hoped
that they might have returned to gather the green indian corn, and
therefore despatched two men to the Ottoes or Pawnee villages with a
present of tobacco, and an invitation to the chiefs to visit us. They
returned after two days absence. Their first course was through an open
prairie to the south, in which they crossed Butterfly creek. They then
reached a small beautiful river, called Come de Cerf, or Elkhorn river,
about one hundred yards wide, with clear water and a gravelly channel.
It empties a little below the Ottoe village into the Platte, which they
crossed, and arrived at the town about forty-five miles from our camp.
They found no Indians there, though they saw some fresh tracks of a
small party. The Ottoes were once a powerful nation, and lived about
twenty miles above the Platte, on the southern bank of the Missouri.
Being reduced, they migrated to the neighborhood of the Pawnees, under
whose protection they now live. Their village is on the south side of
the Platte, about thirty miles from its mouth; and their number is two
hundred men, including about thirty families of Missouri Indians, who
are incorporated with them. Five leagues above them, on the same side of
the river, resides the nation of Pawnees. This people were among the
most numerous of the Missouri Indians, but have gradually been dispersed
and broken, and even since the year 1797, have undergone some sensible
changes. They now consist of four bands; the first is the one just
mentioned, of about five hundred men, to whom of late years have been
added the second band, who are called republican Pawnees, from their
having lived on the republican branch of the river Kanzas, whence they
emigrated to join the principal band of Pawnees: the republican Pawnees
amount to nearly two hundred and fifty men. The third, are the Pawnees
Loups, or Wolf Pawnees, who reside on the Wolf fork of the Platte, about
ninety miles from the principal Pawnees, and number two hundred and