The Spanish soldiers had not been gone long when from the Osage towns in the southeast toward the Missouri River there ran the news that the Americans of Mungo-Meri Pike were coming indeed. They were bringing to the Osages almost fifty men and women whom the Potawotomis had captured last year, and who had been rescued by the American father. Two of the Pawnees who had been to Wash'ton visiting the American father were with them on the way home.
"We will let them come this far, so as to get our brothers back," said Chief Charakterik. "We will talk with them and see what kind of men they are, but they shall go no farther."
He sent Pawnee scouts down to the Osage towns, to watch the Americans.
Now August, the squash month, had passed, and September, the month when the buffalo fatten, had opened. The Americans were reported to be at the Osage villages, where a welcome had greeted the Osages returned from the Potawatomis, and a great council had been held with the Pike men.
They had traveled in boats up the Osage River from the Missouri, but were coming on across country to the Pawnees by horses.
Only one American appeared, first, riding in with a Pawnee-who-had-been-to-Wash'ton as his
