May 8th.—Early in the morning we were awakened by the shrill voices of the Pawnee women, who were engaged in cleaning up the lodge, and collecting their hoes, previous to their going out to the fields to prepare the ground for planting corn. Our breakfast being over, and having had our animals brought from the pasture, we, together with the gentleman from Fort Kearney and his interpreter, started for the upper village, distant about 25 miles, accompanied by our old friend Gatarritatkutz and another Pawnee. Our road was again for several miles across the high prairie. We then descended into the bottom prairie of the Platte, travelling about five miles in sight of the river, when we made a halt near the stream in order to prepare dinner. The situation here pleased us very much, as very suitable for a mission station, should the Pawnees be permanently located where they at present reside. The timber on the islands in the Platte is very easily obtained here. The prairie bottom is from two to three miles wide, gently ascending to the bluffs, and extends about ten miles along the Platte, before the bluffs again approach the river. A mile or two from where we took our lunch a beautiful spring of never failing water gushes forth from the bluff. After dinner, having permitted our animals to graze a while, we proceeded on our journey, travelling partly on the high prairie, after ascending the bluff, and partly in the bottom. At a certain place, as we were travelling along, we noticed, that our Pawnee friends rode aside to a spot, where their attention seemed to be rivetted upon something on the ground. Inquiring what it was, they informed us, that at that place about nine or ten months ago, a Sioux chief had been killed by the Pawnees. It seems, he had made a hostile incursion upon the Pawnees, with a company of his people, and having found some squaws engaged at work in their fields, he had killed them. The Pawnees, irritated at this unprovoked attack, immediately made up a party, who hotly pursued their enemies, and, the horse of the Sioux chief being wearied, and not able to keep up with the rest, he called to his men: “Stop not for me, but save yourselves; I shall die fighting.” His pursuers soon came up with him and killed him, fighting bravely. The spot where he had been killed still presented the marks of Indian barbarity; stones, arrows, and small pieces of the skull, which had been cleft by their tomahawks, lying around,—the bones having been carried away with the carcass by the wolves of the prairie. We turned away in disgust from a place, which had been the scene of such a barbarous atrocity, praying only the more fervently to the Lord, that the passions of these poor people might be softened down by the all-subduing influence of His blessed gospel, through the happy effects of which _alone_, we have been made to differ.—