This was a little too much for the agent, who could not understand how it happened that the boat was so thoroughly prepared for such an accident, with steam up, pilot at the wheel, crew at their places, and all at so early an hour. Next day he found that the barrels consigned to Sarpy were gone, and saw how completely he had been duped. Mortified and indignant, he reported the company to the authorities, and a long train of difficulties ensued, with ineffectual threats of canceling the company’s license.[24] Meanwhile the alcohol found its intended destination in the stomachs of the Indians, and the company reaped the enormous profit which traffic in that article always yielded. [Sidenote: CAPTURED BY THE PAWNEES.] As already noted, when the _Nimrod_ arrived at the site of the Omaha villages, the river was so low that she could not proceed for several days. A crew was kept constantly busy with the yawl, sounding the channel to detect any favorable changes in its shifting bed. On one of these sounding excursions, when about five miles from the boat, and under a high cut bank, La Barge was surprised and captured by a Pawnee war party on their way to steal horses from the Yanktonais. When the Captain heard them speak Pawnee he felt safe, and at once opened conversation with them in their own tongue. Although he knew none of the Indians personally, he succeeded in inducing them to come to the boat and partake of a feast. Thus the Captain’s knowledge of the Pawnee language, acquired in the villages of that tribe ten years before, stood him in excellent stead. These Indians might not have killed him, belonging as they did to a friendly tribe; but war parties, even of friendly Indians, were lawless and desperate, and they would no doubt have handled the little boat crew pretty roughly. [Sidenote: THE LOST SAILORS.] [Sidenote: A TIMELY RESCUE.]