for those which they had taken and rather
ill-treated, in their hurried escape from the Kiowas. But they had taken
a different road from that by which we had come, and consequently we had
missed them. Of course, the council broke up, and the Indians, who had
remained on the other side of the river, were invited in the village to
partake of the Pawnee hospitality.

Gabriel and I soon accosted the strangely-dressed foreigners. In fact,
we were seeking each other, and I learned that they had been a long time
among the Pawnees, and would have passed over to the Comanches, in order
to confer with me on certain political matters, had it not been that
they were aware of the great antipathy the chiefs of that tribe
entertained against the inhabitants of the United States.

The facts were as follows:--These people were emissaries of the Mormons,
a new sect which had sprung up in the States, and which was rapidly
increasing in numbers. This sect had been created by a certain Joseph
Smith. Round the standard of this bold and ambitious leader, swarms of
people crowded from every part, and had settled upon a vast extent of
ground on the eastern shores of the Mississippi, and there established a
civil, religious, and military power, as anomalous as it was dangerous
to the United States. In order to accomplish his ulterior views, this
modern apostle wished to establish relations of peace and friendship
with all the Indians in the great western territories, and had for that
purpose sent messengers among the various tribes east of the Rocky
Mountains. Having also learned, by the St. Louis trappers, that
strangers, long established among the Shoshones of the Pacific Ocean,
were now residing among the Comanches, Smith had ordered his emissaries
among the Pawnees to endeavour to meet us, and concert together as to
what measures could be taken so as to secure a general league, defensive
and offensive, against the Americans and the Texans, and which was to
extend from the Mississippi to the western seas.

Such a proposition of course could not be immediately answered. I
therefore obtained leave from the Comanches to take the two strangers
with us, and we all returned together. It would be useless to relate to
the reader that which passed between me and the emissaries of the
Mormons; let it suffice to say, that after a residence of three weeks in
the village, they were conducted back to the Pawnees. With the advice of
Gabriel, I determined