Our immediate party was to make the journey by land--we were to choose, however, a shorter and pleasanter route than the one we had taken in coming hither.
My husband, with his Frenchmen, Petaille Grignon and Simon Lecuyer, had arrived, and all hands were now busily occupied with the necessary preparations for breaking up and removal.
I should be doing injustice to the hospitable settlers of Hickory Creek were I to pass by without notice an entertainment with which they honored our Chicago beaux about this time.

The merry-making was to be a ball, and the five single gentlemen of Chicago were invited.

Mr.Dole, who was a new-comer, declined; Lieutenant Foster was on duty, but he did what was still better than accepting the invitation, he loaned his beautiful horse to Medard Beaubien, who with Robert Kinzie and Gholson Kercheval promised himself much fun in eclipsing the beaux and creating a sensation among the belles of Hickory Creek.
Chicago was then, as now, looked upon as the City _par excellence_.

Its few inhabitants were supposed to have seen something of the world, and it is to be inferred that the arrival of the smart and dashing young men was an event looked forward to with more satisfaction by the fair of the little settlement than by the swains whose rivals they might become.
The day arrived, and the gentlemen set off in high spirits.

They took care to be in good season, for the dancing was to commence at two o'clock in the afternoon.