In the spring of 1742, not discouraged by the failure of the previous year, Pierre set out again for the Mandans, accompanied this time by his brother François, who was known as the Chevalier, and by two men from the fort. The journey was to prove momentous, but at first the outlook was dark. When they arrived in the Mandan country they could find no sign of the Horse Indians, as the mounted Indians from the West were called. Pierre and his brother waited long at the Mandan village with what patience they could summon. The month of May went by, then June, then {75} most of July, with still no sign of the missing band. Finally the brothers decided that, if they were to go farther west, they could wait no longer, for the season was advancing and it would soon be too late to do anything. At last they found among the Mandans two young men who agreed to lead them to the country of the Horse People. This would bring them to their hoped-for guides. Without a moment's delay they set out towards the south-west in search of the missing Indians. They travelled for twenty days in a south-westerly direction, through what were afterwards known as the Bad Lands of the Little Missouri, a country unlike anything they had ever seen before. On every side they could see mounds and pillars of brilliantly-coloured earth, blue and crimson and green and yellow. So much were they struck with the singular spectacle that they would have liked to carry some of the coloured earth with them to show to their father on their return. But a long journey lay before them. They had to carry everything they needed on their backs, and it would have been folly to add to the load something that was useless for their immediate needs, something that they could neither eat nor wear. {76} About the beginning of August the party reached a mountain where the Mandans expected to find the Horse Indians so eagerly sought. But the Horse Indians had gone on a hunting expedition and had not yet returned; so Pierre and his brother decided to wait for them. On the summit of the mountain they made a signal fire, and every day one of the explorers climbed up to the lookout to see if there were any signs of the Indians. At the foot of the mountain they built a small house in which they lived. Some of their time they spent in hunting to provision the camp, while waiting as patiently as they could for the Horse Indians to return from their hunting.