The night of the third day after the runner had come to tell Joe to get ready, another one came to the ranche and said that White Wolf and the warriors would start in the morning. He told him that he had better come to the camp with him, and stay there that night, so that there would be no delay about getting off early in the morning. So Joe got his things ready, tied a couple of blankets to the cantle of his saddle, his lariat to the horn; slung his carbine over his shoulder, and buckled his belt of cartridges around his waist. He then bade good by to the family, jumped on his pony, which he had named Comanche, after the tribe which had captured Kate, and rode with the runner who had come for him, to the Pawnee camp a mile distant. Arriving there, Joe found everything in confusion. Some of the warriors were picketing their riding animals near the tepees, allowing the loose ponies to run at large, as they will never leave the main bunch. Others were packing their wallets of par-flèche with dried meat for the journey. White Wolf was sitting in the door of his lodge, smoking his pipe and giving general directions to his warriors. At last everything was straightened out to the satisfaction of the chief, and then all adjourned to their several tepees to make ready their arms and ropes for the work that was to be done when they reached the Cimarron. Joe slept in the lodge of the chief that night, and before the dawn was fairly upon the world, the warriors were up, saddling their ponies, taking down their lodges, and packing their traps on the backs of the animals designated for that purpose. Then after a hastily swallowed breakfast of dried buffalo meat, at a signal from White Wolf, the party mounted, and the cavalcade rode southwest at a gentle lope, the pack animals in front, in charge of two warriors. Joe rode alongside of White Wolf in the centre of the column, and they talked of the probability of finding the herd of wild horses on the salt marsh where they were going. They pulled up about noon to graze their animals and to have a smoke, which is the first thing an Indian does when he halts: it is of more importance to him than eating. The Big Bend where the Pawnees wished to cross the Arkansas was seventy-two miles from the Oxhide, near the famous Pawnee Rock, on the old Santa Fé Trail. When the sun was about two hours high, they could see, three or four miles distant, the white contour of the sand hills which border the great silent, treeless stream, and the Indians knew that their camping-ground was near. It was to be in the timber at the mouth of the Walnut, less than two miles from the spot where they would strike the Arkansas. Before it had grown fairly dark, the heavy timber on the Walnut was reached, and the party halted, turned their animals loose, took another smoke, and then prepared for the night.