[120] The creek nearly opposite the camp of the twenty-seventh, unnamed on the map, is Saline (Black Bear) Creek, which the party thought had been passed far up stream.--ED. [121] The route of the party on the twenty-ninth and thirtieth probably led them across the upper course of Hominy Creek, a tributary of the Verdigris, flowing parallel with the Arkansas. They evidently mistook it for a tributary of the Arkansas; the map shows such a tributary crossed on the twenty-ninth, but there is none at the place indicated. This supposition is borne out by the misconception relative to the direction of the ravine crossed on the thirtieth; this depression may have been the dry course of the same creek. The stream visible from the elevated ground was either the Verdigris or Bird Creek, which unites with Hominy Creek on the Osage-Cherokee boundary.--ED. [122] This stream was the Cimarron, then known as the Nesuketonga, or Grand Saline, opposite which the party thought they had encamped on the twenty-first. The point at which they again reached the Arkansas was probably near the Osage-Cherokee line, about twenty miles below the mouth of the Cimarron.--ED. [123] For sketch of the Osage Indians, see Bradbury's _Travels_, in our volume v, note 22. On Clermont, see _ibid._, note 108, and Nuttall's _Journal_, in our volume xiii, note 195.--ED. [124] See description of this custom in Bradbury's _Travels_, in our volume v, p. 63.--ED. [125] The Arkansas band of the Osage were known by the French name of _Osage des Chênes_ (Osage of the Oaks). Chancers is evidently a corruption of _chênes_.--ED. [126] For sketch of White Hair, see Bradbury's _Travels_, in our volume v, note 108; and Nuttall's _Journal_, our volume xiii, note 194. John L. Foe (Watchawaha; called Jean La Fou by the French) was White Hair's son-in-law, and second chief of the Grand Osage. Sans Oreille (Without Ears, Indian name Tetobasi) was first soldier of his tribe as early as Pike's visit in 1806. He and Big Soldier (Has-ha-ke-da-tungar) were in a company of Indians whom Pike escorted to their homes. Part of these tribesmen had visited Washington as delegates of their nation, and some had lately been ransomed by the United States from captivity among the Potawatomi. Lieutenant Wilkinson, of Pike's command, accompanied them to the Little Osage village in August, 1806, and among his entertainers on the occasion of that visit was The Soldier of the Oak. This cognomen is a translation of his French name (Le soldat du chêne), given, it is said, on account of a desperate fight with several assailants, during which he sheltered himself behind an oak. His portrait, painted upon the occasion of a visit to Washington in 1805 or 1806, is published in McKenney, _Indian Tribes_, ii, p. 169.--ED.