184 Expedition to the 



animals for exchange, captured from the Spanish inhabitants 

 of that country. This illicit trade in horses was conducied 

 so extensively by that party of traders, thai he was told of a 

 single Indian, who sold them fifty mules, besides a conside- 

 rable number of horses from his own stock. 



At his return to camp, he was informed that an old Indian 

 had bev;n there, who asserted that he never before had seen 

 a white man, and on being permitted to view a part of the 

 body, usually covered by the dress, he seemed much surpris- 

 ed at its whiteness. 



These Indians seem to hold in exalted estimation, the 

 martial prowess of the Americans. They said that a battle 

 had lately been fought in the country, which lay very far 

 down Red river, between a handful of Americans, and* a 

 great war party of Spaniards; that the latter were soon rout- 

 ed, retreating in a dastardly manner, " like partridges run- 

 ning through the grass." They were at present at war with 

 the Spaniards themselves, and had lately killed many indi- 

 viduals of a party of that nation, near the mountains. 



In the evening, squaws were brought to our camp, and 

 after we had retired to our tent at night, a brother of the 

 grand chief. Bear's- tooth, continued to interrupt our repose, 

 with solicitations in favour of a squaw he had brought with 

 him, until he was peremptorily directed to begone, and the 

 centinel was ordered to prevent his further intrusion. 



The Bear-tooth is the grand chief of the Arrapahoes, and 

 his influence extends over all the tribes of the country in 

 which he roves: he was said to be encamped at no great dis- 

 tance, with the principal body of these, nations. He is said 

 to be very favorably disposed towards the white people, 

 and to have afforded protection, and a home in his own 

 lodge, to a poor and miserable Amfrican,who had had the good 

 fortune to escape from the barbarity- and mistaken polic\ of 

 the Mexican Spaniards, arid from the horrors of a Spanish 

 prison, to find an asylum amongst those whom they regard 



