"The old chief called together the war chiefs and placed them on his left hand, and ourselves on his right, and sat down upon the grass, filled a long pipe with kinnikinic, smoked it, and passed it to his chiefs. They smoked and passed it to us, and we each smoked in turn. The old chief then told us to pick out our horses, which we undertook to do, but found it no easy task to pick out a few horses from among one thousand others scattered for nearly two miles up the creek. After a laborious search, we got all but two that were stolen that morning. We spoke to the chief about the two horses they still had in their possession, but while they acknowledged they had them, they gave us no encouragement that they would let us have them upon our arrival {325} at Laramie, but would only let us have one of them now. The brethren presented the chief with three bushels of salt and we then returned to camp. Thus ended the exciting scenes and business of the day." In a subsequent effort to regain these stolen horses they were unsuccessful. It appears that the Indians did not fulfill their promise, but spirited the horses away where they could not be found. On the 2nd of October, Brother Woodruff and Luke Johnson started out in search of some buffalo meat. He writes of this as follows: "We started at day break, and the wolves, whose cries had rent the air during the night, were slinking away in all directions as we rode along, and the beautiful swans were floating upon the water, adding charm to the scene. Soon, a large herd of buffaloes was in sight. We left our horses and stole upon them as stealthily as we could. The picket guards were frightened several times, but we managed to reassure them. There is no well disciplined army of men more particular to have an old experienced guard on a close look out than a herd of buffaloes." After an exciting hunt they succeeded in getting only one cow. On the 8th they had a beautiful view of a herd of elk, but did not succeed in procuring any. On the 17th they organized a hunting expedition and succeeded in killing two buffaloes, which supplied them with meat for a short time. On the 19th they were met by the police from Winter Quarters, who were led by Brother Hosea Stout. These brethren escorted the pioneer company back, and they all arrived on the banks of the Missouri, October 31st, 1847. A few days previous to Brother Woodruff's arrival, Sister Woodruff had given birth to a daughter. Mother and child were doing well, and all were cheerful and happy.