water, and in his alarm capsized the boat. Carts, barrels, boxes, and
bales, were in a moment floating down the current; but all the men who
were on the shore jumped into the water, without stopping to think if they
could swim, and almost every thing--even heavy articles, such as guns and
lead--was recovered.

Two of the men who could not swim came nigh being drowned, and all the
sugar belonging to one of the messes wasted its sweets on the muddy
waters; but our heaviest loss was a large bag of coffee, which contained
nearly all our provision. It was a loss which none but a traveler in a
strange and inhospitable country can appreciate; and often afterward, when
excessive toil and long marching had overcome us with fatigue and
weariness, we remembered and mourned over our loss in the Kansas. Carson
and Maxwell had been much in the water yesterday, and both, in
consequence, were taken ill. The former continuing so, I remained in camp.
A number of Kansas Indians visited us to-day. Going up to one of the
groups who were scattered among the trees, I found one sitting on the
ground, among some of the men, gravely and fluently speaking French, with
as much facility and as little embarrassment as any of my own party, who
were nearly all of French origin.

On all sides was heard the strange language of his own people, wild, and
harmonizing well with their appearance. I listened to him for some time
with feelings of strange curiosity and interest. He was now apparently
thirty-five years of age; and, on inquiry, I learned that he had been at
St. Louis when a boy, and there had learned the French language. From one
of the Indian women I obtained a fine cow and calf in exchange for a yoke
of oxen. Several of them brought us vegetables, pumpkins, onions, beans,
and lettuce. One of them brought butter, and from a half-breed near the
river, I had the good fortune to obtain some twenty or thirty pounds of