At the first light of day, Bob was up cooking breakfast.  When the sun rose higher into the sky, Bob put his camping gear in the canoe and gave it a push down stream before he jumped in it.  While moving down stream in his canoe, Bob heard laughter and talking ahead of him.  In a short distance he could see women and children on the riverbanks.  Some were washing clothes and others were scraping potatoes or busy with different chores, like gathering wood.  He watched the activity until he realized how close to the bank he was.  He began to paddle fast, turning the canoe into the middle of the stream.  As he did this, he caught sight of a beautiful girl standing on the riverbank holding her laundry in a basket.

Bob was at the powwow grounds and it was no mistaking the Osage men sitting on blankets in a circle.  He knew some of them by name.  The spokesman for the small band of Osages to the west was called Buchannah, and his son-in-law, Jay Jones.  These two men were in the Osage party that went to Congress in Washington to complain about unjust things that had happened to their people.  The Shawnee chief from the north was here with his council.

Bob walked past the little group of Indians to a teepee his friend, Cross, had erected.  The Cross children were growing so fast that Bob wondered if this was the right family, until Jim came from the woods.  Bob and Jim were the first of the Cherokee tribe to arrive at the grounds.  Jim helped Bob find a good place to camp.  He invited Bib to take some of his meals with his family.

Bib decided on a cool swim before evening, so that at water’s edge he took off his shirt and moccasins, then dove into the cold, refreshing water.  He swam to the other bank and turned to see someone near his clothes.  He found the rocky bottom of the river with his feet and walker slowly out of the water with his pants clinging to him.  The figure was the girl he saw this morning with the laundry basket.  She smiled at him and said in Cherokee language, “My Father, Jay Jones, invites you to eat with him.”

Bob learned at the evening meal that Jones had lived on the Mississippi River.  There on the Mississippi, Jones had met his wife, who was one of the Cherokee tribe.  That night, Jay Jones won Bob’s respect, and Jay’s daughter won Bob’s heart.

A powwow is a social event where young people meet and sometimes get married.  Bob Grinder found that the beautiful Osage girl’s name was Margarette Jones.

Today, Margarette was picking blackberries on the steep hill above the powwow grounds.  Bob walked beside her and put some berries into the basket she held.  He then invited her to see an unusual place he had found.  The two walked along a steep cliff and climbed over big boulders.  They looked into a hollow over a hundred feet wide, with a roof that arched to forty feet.  The depth was more than eighty feet.  Among the rock shelters on the Buffalo, this was the largest that Bob knew about.  A stream was flowing noisily from a crevice in back of the cave.  He stepped beside her and sliped his arm around her waist.  Only the sound of the rushing water could be heard.  It was wrong, he felt, to break the silence with a human voice.  He knew he must ask Margarette to marry him.

Two happy people returned to the berry patch where only a half-filled basket set on the ground.  Quickly, the young people worked to fill the berry basket.  They could hear the drums begin to signal the preparation for the night of dancing and singing.