omplished one part of his mission, he addressed himself to the other,
and prepared to march for the Comanche villages.

Leaving a sufficient garrison at the fort, he sent his ensign,
Saint-Ange, with a party of soldiers and Canadians, in wooden canoes, to
the villages of the Kansas higher up the stream, and on the third of
July set out by land to join him, with a hundred and nine Missouri
Indians and sixty-eight Osages in his train. A ride of five days brought
him again to the banks of the Missouri, opposite a Kansas town.
Saint-Ange had not yet arrived, the angry and turbid current, joined to
fevers among his men, having retarded his progress. Meanwhile Bourgmont
drew from the Kansas a promise that their warriors should go with him to
the Comanches. Saint-Ange at last appeared, and at daybreak of the
twenty-fourth the tents were struck and the pack-horses loaded. At six
o'clock the party drew up in battle array on a hill above the Indian
town, and then, with drum beating and flag flying, began their march. "A
fine prairie country," writes Bourgmont, "with hills and dales and
clumps of trees to right and left." Sometimes the landscape quivered
under the sultry sun, and sometimes thunder bellowed over their heads,
and rain fell in floods on the steaming plains.

Renaudiere, engineer of the party, one day stood by the side of the path
and watched the whole procession as it passed him. The white men were
about twenty in all. He counted about three hundred Indian warriors,
with as many squaws, some five hundred children, and a prodigious number
of dogs, the largest and strongest of which dragged heavy loads. The
squaws also served as beasts of burden; and, says the journal, "they
will carry as much as a dog will drag." Horses were less abundant among
these tribes than they afterwards became, so that their work fell
largely upon the women.

On the sixth day the party was within three leagues of the river Kansas,
at a considerable distance above its mouth. Bourgmont had suffered from
dysentery on the march, and an access of the malady made it impossible
for him to go farther. It is easy to conceive the regret with which he
saw himself compelled to return to Fort Orleans. The party retraced
their steps, carrying their helpless commander on a litter.

First, however, he sent one Gaillard on a perilous errand. Taking with
him two Comanche slaves bought for the purpose from the Kansas, Gaillard
was ordered to go to the Comanch