e villages with the message that
Bourgmont had been on his way to make them a friendly visit, and, though
stopped by illness, hoped soon to try again, with better success.

Early in September, Bourgmont, who had arrived safely at Fort Orleans,
received news that the mission of Gaillard had completely succeeded; on
which, though not wholly recovered from his illness, he set out again on
his errand of peace, accompanied by his young son, besides Renaudiere, a
surgeon, and nine soldiers. On reaching the great village of the Kansas
he found there five Comanche chiefs and warriors, whom Gaillard had
induced to come thither with him. Seven chiefs of the Otoes presently
appeared, in accordance with an invitation of Bourgmont; then six chiefs
of the Iowas and the head chief of the Missouris. With these and the
Kansas chiefs a solemn council was held around a fire before Bourgmont's
tent; speeches were made, the pipe of peace was smoked, and presents
were distributed.

On the eighth of October the march began, the five Comanches and the
chiefs of several other tribes, including the Omahas, joining the
cavalcade. Gaillard and another Frenchman named Quesnel were sent in
advance to announce their approach to the Comanches, while Bourgmont and
his followers moved up the north side of the river Kansas till the
eleventh, when they forded it at a point twenty leagues from its mouth,
and took a westward and southwestward course, sometimes threading the
grassy valleys of little streams, sometimes crossing the dry upland
prairie, covered with the short, tufted dull-green herbage since known
as "buffalo grass." Wild turkeys clamored along every watercourse; deer
were seen on all sides, buffalo were without number, sometimes in
grazing droves, and sometimes dotting the endless plain as far as the
eye could reach. Ruffian wolves, white and gray, eyed the travellers
askance, keeping a safe distance by day, and howling about the camp all
night. Of the antelope and the elk the journal makes no mention.
Bourgmont chased a buffalo on horseback and shot him with a
pistol,--which is probably the first recorded example of that way of
hunting.

The stretches of high, rolling, treeless prairie grew more vast as the
travellers advanced. On the seventeenth, they found an abandoned
Comanche camp. On the next day as they stopped to dine, and had just
unsaddled their horses, they saw a distant smoke towards the west, on
which they set the dry grass on