A most unexpected event brightened my hopes for the future even more. A few days after Lasar's departure a party of seven Comanche Indians came riding up the river, armed with unstrung bows, and no lances. They rode up to the fence, and one of them shouted--"Captain, good friend," and I went out to them and asked what they wanted. One of them spoke English very well, and appeared to me a Mexican, who had probably been stolen by them in childhood and had since lived among them. He said that the chief of all the Comanches, Pahajuka (the man in love) had sent them to ask me whether he might come and make a friendship with me? He had heard that I was a good friend to other Indians, and wished me to become his friend as well. The message greatly surprised me, as hitherto, when I had come in contact with men of this nation, we had used our weapons. My first feeling was a suspicion that they wished to effect by treachery what they had not been able to do by arms: still I would not entirely repulse them, and said that if they were speaking to me with one tongue, and desired my friendship, I would readily give it to them; but if they were double-tongued I would become still more their enemy, and in that case they would not be able to sleep peacefully in these parts. I told them at the same time that I should expect their chief on the next morning, on which their speaker intimated that their tribe were encamped a long way off, and Pahajuka had sent them down from there, but when the sun rose for the tenth time he would be here. I promised to wait for him on the appointed morning, and then the savages rode away and soon disappeared behind the last hill on the prairie. Whatever might be the results of the impending conference, I was resolved to make every effort to produce, if possible, more pleasant relations between myself and the Comanches, as by far the greater number of Indians who visited our country belonged to this nation, and the incessant hostilities with them became the more annoying to me in proportion as my cattle and property became augmented. It was now winter, and in addition to our domestic tasks, we principally employed our time in hunting bears, as I greatly needed their grease on the arrival of the expected new settlers and could sell it very profitably. For the sake of fun we also went out singly at night to shoot deer by the system of pan-hunting, so usual in the Eastern States, but which I rarely employed, although it is remarkably productive. This hunt is effected on horseback: the sportsman carries over his left shoulder a stout stick about six feet in length, to the upper end of which a frying-pan with a high rim is fastened. In this pan he lays some small-cut pieces of pine-wood, which, when kindled, burn for a long time with a very bright flame, and allow him distinctly to see every object for a long distance, while himself seeing nothing of the fire behind his back.