[162] Marais des Cygnes creek, continuation of Marais des Cygnes river, as the main course of the Osage river in Kansas is still called, by curious survival of the pure French phrase. This stream is struck in the vicinity of Reading, Lyon Co., nearly on the border of Osage Co.; whence Fowler proceeds about E. N. E. across Cherry creek, to camp on the divide between Marais des Cygnes creek and its Salt creek branch—somewhere between Olivet and Osage City, seat of Osage Co. [163] Salt creek, crossed in the vicinity of Lyndon, seat of Osage Co. [164] Dragoon creek of present nomenclature, considered by Fowler as the main Osage river. It is a large stream, about the size of the Marais des Cygnes itself, separated from the latter by Salt creek—all three of these coming together within a mile or two of each other, in the immediate vicinity of Quenemo, Osage Co., close to the border of Franklin Co. For Dragoon cr., see Pike, ed. of 1895, p. 520. Fowler is now nearing what was soon to become the regular Santa Fé caravan route from Independence, Mo., to the great bend of the Arkansaw—after having needlessly made a great bend of his own southward from that direct line of travel. [165] Appanoose creek, a branch of the Marais des Cygnes which falls in near Ottawa, seat of Franklin Co., into which Fowler has passed from Osage Co. “In 1812 a Captain Becknell, who had been on a trading expedition to the country of the Comanches in the summer of 1811, and had done remarkably well, determined the next season to change his objective point to Santa Fé,” says Inman, p. 38. When at or near the Caches on the Arkansaw, he left that stream and took his party across country on the Cimarron or dry route; but they were obliged to return, after suffering horribly from thirst, and follow up the Arkansaw route to Taos. “The virtual commencement of the Santa Fé trade dates from 1822”; and in 1824 was made the first attempt to introduce wagons, etc., says Inman, p. 51. According to Gregg, a better authority, both pack animals and wagons were used 1822-25, but after that wagons only. According to Fowler’s passage above, we see that Becknell had taken wagons in 1822 if not earlier; and thus the party to which Col. Marmaduke was attached, and which reached Santa Fé with wagons in 1824, was not the first to pass through Kansas on wheels. [166] One of these is Eight Mile creek, next branch of the Marais des Cygnes, falling in near the mouth of the Appanoose, at Ottawa. As “all the Watters runs South East,” we know that Fowler is still on the Osage watershed, and I am inclined to set his camp on one of the heads of Ottawa creek, some 6 m. W. of Baldwin City, Douglas Co., perhaps not far from Willow Springs camp of the traders; for which see Pike, ed. of 1895, p. 519. [167] Heads of the Ottawa creek last said, especially of its East fork. Fowler passes Baldwin City to camp on the divide between the Osage and the Kansan waters.