At length the chief, who was one of the last to cross the river, came up, and shaking each of us by the hand, with some appearance of cordiality, invited us to accompany him a short distance on his route, to a place where his party would encamp for the remainder of the day and the ensuing night. The chief was accompanied by an old man who could speak a little Spanish, by which language we communicated with him. He informed us his band were a part of the tribe of Kaskaias, or Bad-hearts, as they are called by the French; that they had been on a { 291} hunting excursion to the sources of the Rio Brases and the Rio Colorado of Texas,[57] and were now on their way to meet the Spanish traders at a point near the sources of the river we were descending. They in their turn demanded who we were, whence and whither we were travelling, and were apparently satisfied with our answers, though, as afterwards appeared, they did not entirely credit what we had told them of the purposes of our journey.
To our inquiries concerning the river they answered without hesitation, that it was Red river; that at the distance of ten days' travelling in the manner of Indians with their lodges, (about one hundred miles,) we should meet with the permanent village of the Pawnee Piquas, that a large band of Cumancias were hunting on the river below, whom we should fall in with in two or three days. Having described to them the route we had pursued, and the great and frequented road on which we had travelled, they said, that when we were at the point where that road first crosses the river, we were three days' ride from Santa Fé, which was situated behind a low and distant range of hills, which we remembered to have seen from that place.[58]
We hesitated a little to comply with the request of the chief, enforced as it was with some insolence, that we would return and encamp with his party. As, however, we wished to purchase horses and provisions, and to make the best use of an opportunity to become acquainted with the savages, we at length consented. The ground they chose for their encampment was a beautiful open plain, having the river in front, and a small creek on the left. We were somewhat surprised to witness the sudden manner in which this plain became covered with their tall conic lodges, rising "like an exhalation" in perfect silence and good order.