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 eighty men.  The fourth band originally resided on the Kanzas and Arkansaw, but in their wars with the Osages, they were so often defeated, that they at last retired to their present position on the Red river, where they form a tribe of four hundred men.  All these tribes live in villages, and raise corn; but during the intervals of culture rove in the plains in quest of buffaloe.

Beyond them on the river, and westward of the Black mountains, are the Kaninaviesch, consisting of about four hundred men.  They are supposed to have emigrated originally from the Pawnees nation; but they have degenerated from the improvements of the parent tribe, and no longer live in villages, but rove through the plains.

Still further to the westward, are several tribes, who wander and hunt on the sources of the river Platte, and thence to Rock Mountain.  These tribes, of which little more is known than the names and the population, are first, the Staitan, or Kite Indians, a small tribe of one hundred men.  They have acquired the name of Kites, from their flying; that is, their being always on horseback; and the smallness of their numbers is to be attributed to their extreme ferocity; they are the most warlike of all the western Indians; they