The company made but seventeen miles that day.  Just as they had gone into camp, in the evening, three Indians were discovered approaching, two men and a boy of thirteen.  They belonged to the Cheyenne tribe, and had been off, with quite a numerous band, on an unsuccessful horse-stealing raid among the Pawnees.  Upon a summit, they had caught a glimpse of the white men, and had left their companions, confident of finding kind treatment at the camp-fires of the pale faces.

They were invited to supper with Lieutenant Fremont’s mess.  Young Randolph Benton, and the young Cheyenne, after eying each other suspiciously for some time, soon became quite intimate friends.  After supper one of the Cheyennes drew, upon a sheet of paper, very rudely, but, as it afterwards appeared, quite correctly, a map of the general character of the country between the encampment and their villages, which were about three hundred miles further west.

The two next days the party made about forty miles.  “The air was keen,” writes Lieutenant Fremont, “the next morning at sunrise, the thermometer standing at 44 degrees.  It was sufficiently cold to make overcoats very comfortable.  A few miles brought us into the midst of the buffalo, swarming in immense numbers over the plains, where they had left scarcely a blade of grass standing.  Mr. Preuss, who was sketching at a little distance in the rear, had at first noticed them as large groves of timber.  In the sight of such a mass of life, the traveller feels a strange emotion of grandeur.  We had heard, from a distance, a dull and confused murmuring, and when we came in view of their dark masses, there was not one among us who did not feel his heart beat quicker.  It was the early part of the day when the herds are feeding, and every where they are in motion.  Here and there a huge old bull was rolling in the grass, and clouds of dust rose in the air from various parts of the bands.

“Shouts and songs resounded from every part of the line, and our evening camp was always the commencement of a feast which terminated only with our departure on the following morning.  At any time of the night might be seen pieces of the most delicate and choicest meat, roasting on sticks around the fire.  With pleasant weather, and no enemy to fear, an abundance of the most excellent meat and no scarcity of bread or tobacco, they were enjoying an oasis of a voyageur’s life.”

Three buffalo cows were killed to-day.  Kit Carson had shot one, and was continuing the chase in the midst of another herd, when his horse fell headlong, but sprang up and joined the flying band.  Though considerably hurt, he had the good fortune to break no bones.  Maxwell, who was mounted on a fleet hunter, captured the runaway after a hard chase.  He was on the point of shooting him, to avoid the loss of his bridle, a handsomely mounted Spanish one, when he found that his horse was able to come up with him.

The next day was the first of July.