In the account of his expedition up the Arkansas in 1820, Long speaks of the Kiowa as wandering with the Arapaho and others over the prairies of Arkansas and Red rivers, and having great numbers of horses, which they traded to the Cheyenne and other northern Indians, who were not able to rear them so easily in their colder and more barren country. He describes a great gathering of tribes in 1815 on the South Platte, apparently about the junction of Kiowa creek in Colorado, a region which he mentions as frequented by the Kiowa, when the Cheyenne came down with goods from the traders on the Missouri to meet and trade for horses with the Kiowa, Arapaho, and "Kaskaia or Bad Hearts," and a party of traders from St Louis (_James, Long's Ex., 1_). This appears to be the first notice of the Kiowa as living on Red river--which, however, may here mean the Canadian--and is evidence that they were at this time on friendly terms with the Arapaho and Cheyenne, with both of which tribes they were soon after at war. We learn also from this notice that the St Louis traders had already begun to come out to trade with them on the Arkansas, although none were regularly established in their territory until some years later. The "Kaskaias" are probably the Kiowa Apache, or possibly the Wichita. THE OSAGE MASSACRE AND THE DRAGOON EXPEDITION--1833-34 We come now to the period covered by the Kiowa calendars, the first important event of which is the massacre of a large number of the tribe by a war party of Osage in the early spring of 1833. This led indirectly to the expedition of the First dragoons in 1834, by which the Kiowa, Comanche, Wichita, and associated tribes were first brought into official relations with the United States. The massacre and the expedition will be found treated at length in the proper place. When the troops returned to Fort Gibson, in the eastern part of Indian Territory, in August, they were accompanied by a party of one Waco, one Comanche, three Wichita, and fifteen Kiowa chiefs or headmen, of whom the artist Catlin says they were undoubtedly one of the most interesting groups that had ever visited the frontier. Invitations were sent out to the chiefs of all the neighboring tribes to come in to Fort Gibson and meet their visitors from the west. A number responded, and a council lasting several days was held under the auspices of Colonel Dodge of the Dragoons, Indian Agent Major Armstrong, and Indian Commissioner General Stokes, which paved the way for a friendly understanding between the eastern and western tribes, and for both with regard to the United States (_Catlin, 1_).