The picture by Catlin gives a good idea of the location and a tolerable idea of the peculiar conical grass houses of the Wichita, who have always been noted as an agricultural tribe. As usual, however, he has grossly overestimated their number, attributing to the village five or six hundred houses, and to the Wichita and Kiowa eight to ten thousand population. It is very doubtful if the two tribes, with all their affiliated bands, ever numbered a total of twenty-five hundred. The Wichita village may have had, all told, seventy or eighty houses. When the author examined the ground, in 1893, the circular depressions where the houses had stood were still regular in shape and plainly visible. According to Wichita information, the village was called Kĭ´tskûkătû´k, a name which seems to refer to its situation beside the mountain, and was abandoned soon after 1834, when the tribe removed to a new location, where Fort Sill is now located. From there they again removed to Rush spring, about 25 miles farther east, where Marcy found them in 1852. The mountains immediately about the site of the village visited by the dragoons are still known to the Kiowa as _Do`gúat K`op_, "Wichita mountains," the name not being applied by them to the more eastern portion of the range. [Illustration: FIG. 68--Kĭ´tskûkătû´k, the Wichita village on Northfork in 1834 (after Catlin)] The meeting with the Wichita threatened at the start to be hostile. Having learned that they had in their possession a captive white boy, Colonel Dodge demanded that he be surrendered. They repeatedly denied having any knowledge of the boy or the circumstances attending his capture until, being convinced by the sight of their own children brought back by the dragoons that the intentions of the white visitors were friendly, they produced him. An order was immediately given for the Pawnee and Kiowa girls to be brought forward. They were in a few minutes brought into the council house, when they were at once recognized by their friends and relatives, who embraced them with the most extravagant expressions of joy and satisfaction. The heart of the venerable chief was melted at this evidence of the white man's friendship, and he rose upon his feet, and taking Colonel Dodge in his arms and, placing his left cheek against the left cheek of the colonel, held him for some minutes without saying a word, whilst tears were flowing from his eyes. He then embraced each officer in turn in the same silent and affectionate manner, which form took half an hour or more before it was completed.