 CHAPTER 11 SCENES OF THE CAMP Reynal heard guns fired one day at the distance of a mile or two from the camp. He grew nervous instantly. Visions of crow-war parties began to haunt his imagination, and when we returned, for we were all absent. He renewed his complaints about being left alone with the Canadians and the Squaw. The day after, the cause of the alarm appeared. Four trappers, one called Moran, another Seraphine, and the others nicknamed Houlot and Jean-Gras, came to our camp and joined us. They it was who fired the guns and disturbed the dreams of our Confederate Reynal. They soon encamped by our side. Their rifles, dingy and battered with hard service, rested with ours against the old tree. Their strong rude saddles, their buffalo robes, their traps, and the few rough and simple articles of their travelling equipment were piled near our tent. Their mountain horses were turned to graze in the meadow among our own, and the men themselves, no less rough and hardy, used to lie half the day in the shade of our tree, lowling on the grass, lazily smoking, and telling stories of their adventures. And I defy the annals of chivalry to furnish the record of a life more wild and perilous than that of a rocky mountain trapper. With this efficient reinforcement the agitation of Reynal's nerves subsided. He began to conceive a sort of attachment to our old camping ground, yet it was time to change our quarters, since remaining too long on one spot must lead to certain unpleasant results, not to be born with, unless in a case of dire necessity. The grass no longer presented a smooth surface of turf, it was trampled into mud and clay. So we removed to another old tree, larger yet, that grew by the river side at a furlong's distance. Its trunk was full six feet in diameter. On one side it was marked by a party of Indians with various inexplicable hieroglyphics, commemorating some war-like enterprise, and a loft among the branches were the remains of a scaffolding where dead bodies had once been deposited after the Indian manor. "'There comes Bull Bear,' said Henry Shaddle on, as we sat on the grass at dinner. Looking up we saw several horsemen coming over the neighbouring hill, and in a moment four stately young men rode up and dismounted. One of them was Bull Bear, or Mato Tatanka, a compound name which he inherited from his father, the most powerful chief in the Ogallala band. One of his brothers and two other young men accompanied him. We shook hands with the visitors, and when we had finished our meal, for this is the orthodox manner of entertaining Indians, even the best of them, we handed to each a tin cup of coffee and a biscuit, at which they ejaculated from the bottom of their throats, how, how, a monosyllable by which an Indian contrives to express half the emotions that he is susceptible of. Then we lighted the pipe and passed it to them as they squatted on the ground. "'Where is the village?' "'There,' said Mato Tatanka, pointing southward, "'it will come in two days. "'Will they go to the war?' "'Yes.'" No man as a philanthropist on the prairie. We welcomed this news most cordially, and congratulated ourselves that Bordeaux's interested efforts to divert the whirlwind from his congenial vocation of bloodshed had failed of success, and that no additional obstacles would interpose between us and our plan of repairing to the rendezvous at Le Bonce camp. For that and several succeeding days, Mato Tatanka and his friends remained our guests. They devoured the relics of our meals, they filled the pipe for us, and also helped us to smoke it. Sometimes they stretched themselves side by side in the shade, indulging in rallyery and practical jokes ill-becoming the dignity of brave and aspiring warriors, such as two of them in reality were. Two days dragged away, and on the morning of the third we hoped confidently to see the Indian village. It did not come, so we rode out to look for it. In place of the eight hundred Indians we expected, we met one solitary savage riding toward us over the prairie, who told us that the Indians had changed their plans and would not come within three days. Still he persisted that they were going to the war. Having along with us this messenger of evil tidings, we retraced our footsteps to the camp, amusing ourselves by the way with execrating Indian inconstancy. When we came inside of our little white tent under the big tree, we saw that it no longer stood alone. A huge old lodge was erected close by its side, discoloured by rain and storms, rotted with age, with the uncouth figures of horses and men, and outstretched hands that were painted upon it well nigh obliterated. The long poles which supported this squalid habitation thrust themselves rickishly out from its point atop, and over its entrance were suspended, a medicine pipe, and various other implements of the magic art. While we were yet at a distance, we observed a greatly increased population of various colours and dimensions swarming around our quiet encampment. Moran, the trapper, having been absent for a day or two, had returned, it seemed, bringing all his family with him. He had taken to himself a wife for whom he had paid the established price of one horse. This looks cheap at first sight, but in truth purchase of a squaw is a transaction which no man should enter into without mature deliberation, since it involves not only the payment of the first price, but the formidable burden of feeding and supporting a rapacious horde of the bride's relatives, who hold themselves entitled to feed upon the indiscreet white man. They gather round like leeches, and drain him of all he has. Moran, like Reynal, had not allied himself to an aristocratic circle. His relatives occupied but a contemptible position in Ogallala society, for among those wild Democrats of the prairie as among us there are virtual distinctions of rank and place, though this great advantage they have over us, that wealth has no part in determining such distinctions. Moran's partner was not the most beautiful of her sex, and he had the exceedingly bad taste to array her in an old calico gown bought from an immigrant woman instead of the neat and graceful tunic of white and deerskin worn ordinarily by the squaws. The moving spirit of the establishment, in more senses than one, was a hideous old hag of eighty. Human imagination never conceived Hobgoblin or Witch more ugly than she. You could count all her ribs through the wrinkles of the leathery skin that covered them. Her withered face more resembled an old skull than the countenance of a living being, even to the hollow, darkened sockets at the bottom of which glittered her little black eyes. Her arms had dwindled away into nothing but whip-cord and wire. Her hair, half black, half gray, hung in total neglect nearly to the ground, and her sole garment consisted of the remnant of a discarded buffalo robe tied round her waist with a string of hide. Yet the old squaw's meager anatomy was wonderfully strong. She pitched the lodge, packed the horses, and did the hardest labor of the camp. From morning till night she bustled about the lodge, screaming like a screech owl when anything displeased her. Then there was her brother, a medicine man or magician, equally gaunt and sinewy with herself. His mouth spread from ear to ear, and his appetite as we had full occasion to learn was ravenous in proportion. The other inmates of the lodge were a young bride and bridegroom, the latter one of those idle good-for-nothing fellows who infest an Indian village as well as more civilized communities. He was fit neither for hunting nor for war, and one might infer as much from the stolid, unmeaning expression of his face. The happy pair had just entered upon the honeymoon. They would stretch a buffalo robe upon poles so as to protect them from the fierce rays of the sun, and, spreading beneath this rough canopy a luxuriant couch of furs, would sit affectionately side by side for half the day, though I could not discover that much conversation passed between them. Probably they had nothing to say. For an Indian supply of topics for conversation is far from being copious. There were half a dozen children, too, playing and whooping about the camp, shooting birds with little bows and arrows, or making miniature lodges of sticks as children of a different complexion build houses of blocks. A day passed, and Indians began rapidly to come in. Parties of two or three or more would ride up and silently seat themselves on the grass. The fourth day came at last, when about noon, horsemen suddenly appeared into view on the summit of the neighboring ridge. They descended, and behind them followed a wild procession, hurrying in haste and disorder down the hill and over the plain below. Horses, mules, and dogs, heavily burdened travaux, mounted warriors, squaws walking amid the throng, and a host of children. For a full half-hour they continued to pour down, and keeping directly to the bend of the stream within a furlong of us they soon assembled there, a dark and confused throng, until, as if by magic, a hundred-fifty tall lodges sprung up. On a sudden the lonely plain was transformed into the sight of a miniature city. Countless horses were soon grazing over the meadows around us, and the whole prairie was animated by restless figures careening on horseback or sedately stalking in their long white robes. The whirlwind was come at last. One question yet remained to be answered. Will he go to the war in order that we, with so respectable an escort, may pass over to the somewhat perilous rendezvous at Labonte's camp? Still this remained in doubt. Characteristic indecision perplexed their councils. Indians cannot act in large bodies. Though their object be of the highest importance, they cannot combine to attain it by a series of connected efforts. King Philip, Pontiac, and Tecumseh all felt this to their cost. The Ogallala once had a war chief who could control them, but he was dead, and now they were left to the sway of their own unsteady impulses. This Indian village and its inhabitants will hold a prominent place in the rest of the narrative, and perhaps it may not be amiss to glance for an instant at the savage people of which they form a part. The Dakota, I prefer this national designation to the unmeaning French name Sioux, range over a vast territory from the river St. Peter's to the Rocky Mountains themselves. They are divided into several independent bands, united under no central government, and acknowledge no common head. The same language, usages, and superstitions form the soul bond between them. They do not unite even in their wars. The bands of the East fight the Ojibwes on the upper lakes. Those of the West make incessant war upon the snake Indians and the Rocky Mountains. As the whole people is divided into bands, so each band is divided into villages. Each village has a chief who is honored and obeyed only so far as his personal qualities may command respect and fear. Sometimes he is a mere nominal chief. Sometimes his authority is little short of absolute. And his fame and influence reach even beyond his own village, so that the whole band to which he belongs is ready to acknowledge him as their head. This was a few years since the case with the Ogallala. Courage, address, and enterprise may raise any warrior to the highest honor, especially if he be the son of a former chief or a member of a numerous family, to support him and avenge his quarrels. But when he has reached the dignity of chief, and the old men and warriors by a peculiar ceremony have formally installed him, let it not be imagined that he assumes any of the outward semblances of rank and honor. He knows too well on how frail a tenure he holds his station. He must conciliate his uncertain subjects. Many a man in the village lives better, owns more squaws and more horses, and goes better clad than he. Like the Teutonic chiefs of old, he ingratiates himself with his young men by making them presence, thereby often impoverishing himself. Does he fail in gaining their favor? They will set his authority at nought and may desert him at any moment, for the usages of his people have provided no sanctions by which he may enforce his authority. Very seldom does it happen, at least among these western bands, that a chief attains to much power, unless he is the head of a numerous family. Frequently the village is principally made up of his relatives and descendants, and the wandering community assumes much of the patriarchal character. A people so loosely united, torn too with ranking feuds and jealousies, can have little power or efficiency. The western Dakota have no fixed habitations. Hunting and fighting, they wander incessantly through summer and winter. Summer following the herds of buffalo over the waste of prairie, others are traversing the black hills, thronging on horseback and on foot through the dark gulfs and sombre gorges beneath the vast splintering precipices, and emerging at last upon the parks, those beautiful but most perilous hunting grounds. The buffalo supplies them with almost all the necessaries of life, with habitations, food, clothing, and fuel, with strings for their bows, with thread, cordage, and trail ropes for their horses, with coverings for their saddles, with vessels to hold water, with boats to cross streams, with glue, and with the means of purchasing all that they desire from the traders. When the buffalo are extinct, they too must dwindle away. War is the breath of their nostrils. Against most of the neighboring tribes, they cherish a deadly, rancorous hatred transmitted from father to son, and inflamed by a constant aggression and retaliation. Many times a year in every village, the great spirit is called upon, fasts are made, the war parade is celebrated, and the warriors go out by handfuls at a time against the enemy. This fierce and evil spirit awakens their most eager aspirations, and calls forth their greatest energies. It is chiefly this that saves them from lethargy and utter abasement. Without its powerful stimulus they would be like the unwarlike tribes beyond the mountains, who are scattered among the caves and rocks like beasts, living on roots and reptiles. These latter have little of humanity except the form. But the proud and ambitious Dakota warrior can sometimes boast of heroic virtues. It is very seldom that distinction and influence are attained among them by any other course than that of arms. Their superstition, however, sometimes gives great power to those among them who pretend to the character of magicians. Their wild hearts, too, can feel the power of oratory and yield deference to the masters of it. But to return, look into our tent, or enter if you can bear the stifling smoke in the close atmosphere. There wedged close together you will see a circle of stout warriors passing the pipe around, joking, telling stories, and making themselves merry after their fashion. We were also infested by little copper-colored naked boys and snake-eyed girls. They would come up to us, muttering certain words, which, being interpreted, conveyed the concise invitation, come and eat. Then we would rise, cursing the pertinacity of Dakota hospitality, which allowed scarcely an hour of rest between sun and sun, and to which we were bound to do honor, unless we would offend our entertainers. This necessity was particularly burdensome to me, as I was scarcely able to walk from the effects of illness, and was, of course, poorly qualified to dispose of twenty meals a day. Of these sumptuous banquets I gave a specimen in a former chapter where the tragical fate of the little dog was chronicled. So bounteous an entertainment looks like an outgushing of good will, but doubtless one-half at least of our kind hosts, had they met us alone and unarmed on the prairie, would have robbed us of our horses, and perchance have bestowed an arrow upon us beside. Trust not, an Indian. Let your rifle be ever in your hand. Where next to your heart the old chivalric motto, Semper Paratus? One morning we were summoned to the lodge of an old man, in good truth the nester of his tribe. We found him half sitting, half reclining on a pile of buffalo robes. His long hair, jet black even now, though he had seen some eighty winters, hung on either side of his thin features. Those most conversant with Indians in their homes will scarcely believe me when I affirm that there was dignity in his countenance and mien. His gaunt but symmetrical frame did not more clearly exhibit the wreck of bygone strength than did his dark, wasted features, still prominent and commanding bear the stamp of mental energies. I recalled, as I saw him, the eloquent metaphor of the Iroquois heichim. I am an aged hemlock. The winds of a hundred winters have whistled through my branches, and I am dead at the top. Opposite the patriarch was his nephew, the young aspirant Mato Tottanka, and besides these there were one or two women in the lodge. The old man's story is peculiar and singularly illustrative of a superstitious custom that prevails in full force among many of the Indian tribes. He was one of a powerful family renowned for their warlike exploits. When a very young man he submitted to the singular right to which most of the tribes object themselves before entering upon life. He painted his face black, then seeking out a cavern in a sequestered part of the black hills, he lay for several days fasting and praying to the great spirit. In the dreams and visions produced by his weakened and excited state he fancied, like all Indians, that he saw supernatural revelations. Again and again the form of an antelope appeared before him. The antelope is the graceful peace spirit of the Ogallala, but seldom is it that such a gentle visitor presents itself during the initiatory fasts of their young men. The terrible grizzly bear, the divinity of war, usually appears to fire them with martial ardor and thirst for renown. At length the antelope spoke. He told the young dreamer that he was not to follow the path of war, that a life of peace and tranquility was marked out for him, that henceforward he was to guide the people by his councils and protect them from the evils of their own feuds and dissensions. Others were to gain renown by fighting the enemy, but greatness of a different kind was in store for him. The visions beheld during the period of this fast usually determined the whole course of the dreamer's life, for an Indian is bound by iron superstitions. From that time Le Bourne, which was the only name by which we knew him, abandoned all thoughts of war and devoted himself to the labors of peace. He told his vision to the people. They honored his commission and respected him in his novel capacity. A far different man was his brother Mato Tatanka, who had transmitted his names, his features, and many of his characteristic qualities to his son. He was the father of Henry Shatalon's squaw, a circumstance which proved of some advantage to us, as securing for us the friendship of a family perhaps the most distinguished and powerful in the whole Ogallala band. Mato Tatanka, in his rude way, was a hero. No chief could vie with him in warlike renown or in power over his people. He had a fearless spirit and a most impetuous and inflexible resolution. His will was law. He was politic and sagacious, and with true Indian craft he always befriended the whites, well knowing that he might thus reap great advantages for himself and his adherents. When he had resolved on any course of conduct he would pay to the warriors the empty compliment of calling them together to deliberate upon it, and when their debates were over he would quietly state his own opinion, which no one ever disputed. The consequences of thwarting his imperious will were too formidable to be encountered. Woe to those who incurred his displeasure! He would strike them or stab them on the spot, and this act, which if attempted by any other chief would instantly have cost him his life, the awe inspired by his name enabled him to repeat again and again with impunity. In a community where, from immemorial time no man has acknowledged any law but his own will, Mato Tatanka, by the force of his dauntless resolution, raised himself to power little short of despotic. His haughty career came at last to an end. He had a host of enemies only waiting for their opportunity of revenge, and our old friend Smoke, in particular, together with all his kinsmen, hated him most cordially. Smoke sat one day in his lodge in the midst of his own village when Mato Tatanka entered it alone, and, approaching the dwelling of his enemy, called on him in a loud voice to come out, if he were a man, and fight. Smoke would not move. At this Mato Tatanka proclaimed him a coward, and an old woman, and striding close to the entrance of the lodge, stabbed the chief's best horse which was picketed there. Smoke was daunted, and even this insult failed to call him forth. Mato Tatanka moved haughtily away. All made way for him, but his hour of reckoning was near. One hot day, five or six years ago, numerous lodges of Smokes kinsmen were gathered around some of the fur company's men who were trading in various articles with them, whiskey among the rest. Mato Tatanka was also there with a few of his people. As he lay in his own lodge, a fray arose between his adherents and the kinsmen of his enemy. The war-woop was raised, bullets and arrows began to fly, and the camp was in confusion. The chief sprang up, and rushing in a fury from the lodge, shouted to the combatants on both sides to cease. Instantly, for the attack was preconcerted, came the reports of two or three guns and the twanging of a dozen bows, and the savage hero, mortally wounded, pitched forward headlong to the ground. Roulot was present, and told me the particulars. The tumult became general, and was not quelled until several had fallen on both sides. When we were in the country, the feud between the two families was still rankling, and not likely soon to cease. Thus died Mato Tatanka, but he left behind him a goodly army of descendants to perpetuate his renown and avenge his fate. Besides daughters, he had thirty sons, a number which need not stagger the credulity of those who are best acquainted with Indian usages and practices. We saw many of them, all marked by the same dark complexion and the same peculiar cast of features. Of these our visitor, young Mato Tatanka, was the eldest, and some reported him as likely to succeed to his father's honors. Though he appeared not more than twenty-one years old, he had often struck the enemy and stolen more horses and more squaws than any young man in the village. We of the civilized world are not apt to attach much credit to the latter species of exploits, but horse-stealing is well known as an avenue to distinction on the prairies, and the other kind of depredation is esteemed equally meritorious. Not that the act can confer fame from its own intrinsic merits, anyone can steal a squaw, and if he chooses afterward to make an adequate present to a rightful proprietor, the easy husband for the most part rests content, his vengeance falls asleep, and all danger from that quarter is averted. Yet this is esteemed but a pitiful and mean-spirited transaction. The danger is averted, but the glory of the achievement also is lost. Mato Tataka proceeded after a more gallant and dashing fashion. Out of several dozen squaws whom he had stolen, he could boast that he had never paid for one, but snapping his fingers in the face of the injured husband had defied the extremity of his indignation, and no one yet had dared to lay the finger of violence upon him. He was following close in the footsteps of his father. The young men in the young squaws, each in their way, admired him. The one would always follow him to war, and he was esteemed to have unrivaled charm in the eyes of the other. Perhaps his impunity may excite some wonder. An arrow shot from a ravine, a stab given in the dark, require no great valor, and are especially suited to the Indian genius. But Mato Tataka had a strong protection. It was not alone his courage and audacious will that enabled him to career so dashingly among his com peers. His enemies did not forget that he was one of thirty warlike brethren, all growing up to manhood. Should they wreak their anger upon him, many keen eyes would be ever upon them. Many fierce hearts would thirst for their blood. The Avenger would dog their footsteps everywhere. To kill Mato Tataka would be no better than an act of suicide. Though he found such favor in the eyes of the fair, he was no dandy. As among us, those of highest worth and breeding are the most simple in manner and attire. So our aspiring young friend was indifferent to the gaudy trappings and ornaments of his companions. He was content to rest his chances of success upon his own warlike merits. He never arrayed himself in gaudy blanket and glittering necklaces, but left his statue-like form, limbed like an Apollo of bronze, to win its way to favor. His voice was singularly deep and strong. It sounded from his chest like the deep notes of an organ. Yet after all he was but an Indian. See him as he lies there in the sun before our tent, kicking his heels in the air and cracking jokes with his brother. Does he look like a hero? See him now in the hour of his glory when at sunset the whole village empties itself to behold him. For tomorrow their favorite young partisan goes out against the enemy. His superb headdress is adorned with a crest of the Warrigal's feathers, rising in a waving ridge above his brow and sweeping far behind him. His round white shield hangs at his breast, with feathers radiating from the center like a star. His quiver is at his back. His tall lance in his hand, the iron point flashing against the declining sun, while the long scalp-locks of his enemies flutter from the shaft. Thus, gorgeous as a champion in his panoply, he rides round and round within the great circle of lodges, balancing with a graceful buoyancy to the free movements of his war-horse, while with a sedate brow he sings his song to the great spirit. Young rival warriors look a-scanse at him. In cheek-girls, gazed in admiration, boys whoop and scream in a thrill of delight, and old women yell forth his name and proclaim his praises from lodge to lodge. Mattautatanka, to come back to him, was the best of all our Indian friends. Hour after hour and day after day, when swarms of savages of every aged sex and degree beset our camp, he would lie in our tent, his link's eye ever open to guard our property from pillage. The whirlwind invited us one day to his lodge. The feast was finished and the pipe began to circulate. It was a remarkably large and fine one, and I expressed my admiration of its form and dimensions. If the Meneasca likes the pipe, asked the whirlwind, why does he not keep it? Such a pipe among the Ogallala is valued at the price of a horse. A princely gift, thinks the reader, and worthy of a chieftain and a warrior. The whirlwind's generosity rose to no such pitch. He gave me the pipe, confidently expecting that I in return should make him a present of equal or superior value. This is the implied condition of every gift among the Indians as among the Orientals, and should it not be complied with, the present is usually reclaimed by the giver. So I arranged upon a gaudy calico handkerchief, an assortment of vermilion, tobacco, knives, and gunpowder, and summoning the chief to camp assured him of my friendship and begged his acceptance of a slight token of it. Ejaculating, oh, oh, he folded up the offerings and withdrew to his lodge. Several days passed, and we and the Indians remained and camped side by side. They could not decide whether or not to go to war. Toward evenings scores of them would surround our tent, a picturesque group. Late one afternoon a party of them mounted on horseback came suddenly in sight from behind some clumps of bushes that lined the bank of the stream, leading with them a mule, on whose back was a wretched negro, only sustained in his seat by the high pommel and cantal of the Indian saddle. His cheeks were withered and shrunken in the hollow of his jaws, his eyes were unnaturally dilated, and his lips seemed shriveled and drawn back from his teeth like those of a corpse. When they brought him up before our tent and lifted him from the saddle he could not walk or stand, but he crawled a short distance, and with a look of utter misery sat down on the grass. All the children and women came pouring out of the lodges round us, and with screams and cries made a close circle about him, while he sat supporting himself with his hands and looking from side to side with a vacant stare. The wretch was starving to death. For thirty-three days he had wandered alone on the prairie without weapon of any kind, without shoes, moccasins, or any other clothing than an old jacket and pantaloons, without intelligence and skill to guide his course, or any knowledge of the productions of the prairie. All this time he had subsisted on crickets and lizards, boiled onions, and three eggs which he found in the nest of a prairie dove. He had not seen a human being, utterly bewildered in the boundless, hopeless desert that stretched around him, offering to his inexperienced eye no mark by which to direct his course, he had walked on in despair till he could walk no longer, and then crawled on his knees until the bone was laid bare. He chose the night for his traveling, lying down by day to sleep in the glaring sun, always dreaming, as he said, of the broth and corn cake he used to eat under his old master's shed in Missouri. Every man in the camp, both white and red, was astonished at his wonderful escape, not only from starvation, but from the grizzly bears which abound in that neighborhood, and the wolves which howled around him every night. Reynal recognized him the moment the Indians brought him in. He had run away from his master about a year before, and joined the party of Monsieur Richard, who was then leaving the frontier for the mountains. He had lived with Richard ever since, until the end of May. He, with Reynal and several other men, went out in search of some stray horses, when he got separated from the rest in a storm, and had never been heard of up to this time. Knowing his inexperience and helplessness, no one dreamed that he could still be living. The Indians had found him lying exhausted on the ground. As he sat there with the Indians gazing silently on him, his haggard face and glazed eye were disgusting to look upon. Deloria made him a bowl of gruel, but he suffered it to remain untasted before him. At length he languidly raised the spoon to his lips. Again he did so, and again, and then his appetites seemed suddenly inflamed into madness, for he seized the bowl, swallowed all its contents in a few seconds, and eagerly demanded, meat. This we refused, telling him to wait until morning, but he begged so eagerly that we gave him a small piece, which he devoured tearing it like a dog. He said he must have more. We told him that his life was in danger if he ate so immoderately at first. He assented, and said he knew he was a fool to do so, but he must have meat. This we absolutely refused to the great indignation of the senseless squaws, who, when we were not watching him, would slyly bring dried meat and pom blanche and place them on the ground by his side. Still, this was not enough for him. When it grew dark he contrived to creep away between the legs of the horses and crawl over to the Indian village about a furlong down the stream. Here he fed to his heart's content, and was brought back again in the morning. When Jean Gras, the trapper, put him on horseback and carried him to the fort, he managed to survive the effects of his insane greediness, and though slightly deranged when we left this part of the country, he was otherwise intolerable health and expressed his firm conviction that nothing could ever kill him. When the sun was yet an hour high it was a gay scene in the village. The warriors stalked sedately among the lodges or along the margin of the streams, or walked out to visit the bands of horses that were feeding over the prairie. Half the village population deserted the close and heated lodges and betook themselves to the water, and here you might see boys and girls and young squaws splashing, swimming, and diving beneath the afternoon sun with merry laughter and screaming. But when the sun was just resting above the broken peaks and the purple mountains threw their prolonged shadows for miles over the prairie, when our grim old tree, lighted by the horizontal rays, assumed an aspect of peaceful repose, such as one loves, after scenes of tumult and excitement, and when the whole landscape of swelling plains and scattered groves was softened into a tranquil beauty, then our encampment presented a striking spectacle. Could Salvatore Rosa have transferred it to his canvas, and would have added new renown to his pencil? Savage figures surrounded our tent with quivers at their backs, and guns, lances, or tomahawks in their hands. Some sat on horseback, motionless as equestrian statues, their arms crossed on their breasts, their eyes fixed in a steady unwavering gaze upon us. Some stood erect, wrapped from head to foot in their long white robes of buffalo hide. Some sat together on the grass, holding their shaggy horses by a rope, with their broad dark busts exposed to view, as they suffered their robes to fall from their shoulders. Others again stood carelessly among the throng, with nothing to conceal the matchless symmetry of their forms, and I do not exaggerate when I say that only on the prairie and in the Vatican have I seen such faultless models of the human figure. See that warrior standing by the tree, towering six feet and a half in stature. Your eyes may trace the whole of his graceful and majestic height, and discover no defect or blemish. With his free and noble attitude, with the bow in his hand and the quiver at his back, he might seem but for his face the pithy and Apollo himself. Such a figure rose before the imagination of West, when on first seeing the Bel Vintere in the Vatican he exclaimed, by God, a Mohawk. When the sky darkened and the stars began to appear, when the prairie was involved in gloom and the horses were driven in and secured around the camp, the crowd began to melt away. Fires gleamed around, duskily revealing the rough trappers and the graceful Indians. One of the families near us would always be gathered about a bright blaze that displayed the shadowy dimensions of their lodge and sent its lights far up among the masses of foliage above, gilding the dead and ragged branches. Withered witch-like hags flitted around the blaze, and here for hour after hour sat a circle of children and young girls, laughing and talking, their round merry faces glowing in the ruddy light. We could hear the monotonous notes of the drum from the Indian village with the chant of the war song deadened in the distance and the long chorus of quavering yells where the war dance was going on in the largest lodge. For several nights, too, we could hear wild and mournful cries rising and dying away like the melancholy voice of a wolf. They came from the sisters and female relatives of Mato Tatanka, who were gashing their limbs with knives and bewailing the death of Henry Shatalon's squaw. The hour would grow late before all retired to rest in the camp. Then the embers of the fires would be glowing dimly, the men would be stretched in their blankets on the ground, and nothing could be heard but the restless motions of the crowded horses. I recall these scenes with a mixed feeling of pleasure and pain. At this time I was so reduced by illness that I could sell them walk without reeling like a drunken man, and when I rose from my seat upon the ground, the landscape suddenly grew dim before my eyes, the trees and lodges seemed to sway to and fro, and the prairie to rise and fall like the swells of the ocean. Such a state of things is by no means enviable anywhere. In a country where a man's life may at any moment depend on the strength of his arm, or it may be on the activity of his legs, it is more particularly inconvenient. Medical assistance, of course, there was none. Neither had I the means of pursuing a system of diet, and sleeping on a damp ground with an occasional drenching from a shower would hardly be recommended as beneficial. I sometimes suffered the extremity of languor and exhaustion, and though at the time I felt no apprehensions of the final result, I have since learned that my situation was a critical one. Besides other formidable inconveniences, I owe it in a great measure to the remote effects of that unlucky disorder that from deficient eyesight I am compelled to employ the pen of another in taking down this narrative from my lips, and I have learned very effectually that a violent attack of dysentery on the prairie is a thing too serious for a joke. I tried repose in a very sparing diet. For a long time, with exemplary patience, I lounged about the camp, or at the utmost staggered over to the Indian village, and walked faint and dizzy among the lodges. It would not do, and I bethought me of starvation. During five days I sustained life on one small biscuit a day. At the end of that time I was weaker than before, but the disorder seemed shaken in its stronghold, and very gradually I began to resume a less rigid diet. No sooner had I done so than the same detested symptoms revisited me. My old enemy resumed his pertinacious assaults, yet not with his former violence or constancy, and though before I regained any fair portion of my ordinary strength, weeks had lapsed and months passed before the disorder left me, yet thanks to old habits of activity and immersive providence I was able to sustain myself against it. I used to lie languid and dreamy before our tent, and muse on the past and the future, and when most overcome with lassitude my eyes always turned toward the distant black hills. There is a spirit of energy and vigor in mountains, and they impart it to all who approach their presence. At that time I did not know how many dark superstitions and gloomy legends are associated with those mountains in the minds of the Indians, but I felt an eager desire to penetrate their hidden recesses to explore the awful chasms and precipices, the black torrents, the silent forests, that I fancied were concealed there. CHAPTER XII A Canadian came from Fort Laramie and brought a curious piece of intelligence. A trapper fresh from the mountains had become enamored of a Missouri damsel belonging to a family who, with other emigrants, had been for some days encamped in the neighborhood of the fort. If bravery be the most potent charm to win the favor of the fair, then no war could be more irresistible than a rocky mountain trapper. In the present instance the suit was not urged in vain. The lovers concerted a scheme which they proceeded to carry into effect with all possible dispatch. The emigrant party left the fort and on the next succeeding night put one encamped as usual and placed a guard. A little after midnight the enamored trapper drew near mounted on a strong horse and leading another by the bridle. Fastening both animals to a tree, he stealthily moved toward the wagons as if he were approaching a band of buffalo. He looting the vigilance of the guard, who was probably half asleep, he met his mistress by appointment at the outskirts of the camp, mounted her on his spare horse, and made off with her through the darkness. The sequel of the adventure did not reach our ears, and we never learned how the impudent fair one liked an Indian lodge for a dwelling and a reckless trapper for a bridegroom. At length the whirlwind and his warriors determined to move. They had resolved after all their preparations not to go to the rendezvous at Le Bon's camp, but to pass through the black hills and spend a few weeks in hunting the buffalo on the other side until they had killed enough to furnish them with a stock of provisions and with hides to make their lodges for the next season. This done they were to send out a small independent war party against the enemy. Their final determination left us in some embarrassment. Should we go to Le Bon's camp it was not impossible that the other villages would prove as vacillating and indecisive as the whirlwinds and that no assembly whatever would take place. Our old companion Reynal had conceived a liking for us, or rather for our biscuit and coffee, and for the occasional small presence which we made him. He was very anxious that we should go with the village which he himself intended to accompany. He declared he was certain that no Indians would meet at the rendezvous, and said moreover that it would be easy to convey our cart and baggage through the black hills. In saying this he told, as usual, an egregious falsehood, neither he nor any white man with us had ever seen the difficult and obscurity files through which the Indians intended to make their way. I passed them afterward and had much adieu to force my distressed horse along the narrow ravines and through chasms where daylight could scarcely penetrate. Our cart might as easily have been conveyed over the summit of Pike's Peak. Anticipating the difficulties and uncertainties of an attempt to visit the rendezvous, we recalled the old proverb about a bird in the hand and decided to follow the village. Both camps, the Indians and our own, broke up on the morning of the 1st of July. I was so weak that the aid of a potent auxiliary, a spoon full of whisky swallowed at short intervals, alone enabled me to sit on my hearty little mare Pauline through the short journey of that day. For half a mile before us and half a mile behind, the prairie was covered far and wide with the moving throng of savages. The barren, broken plain stretched away to the right and left, and far in front rose the gloomy precipitous ridge of the black hills. We pushed forward to the head of the scattered column, passing the burdened travaux, the heavily laden pack horses, the gaunt old women on foot, the gay young squaws on horseback, the restless children running among the crowd, old men striding along in their white buffalo robes, and groups of young warriors mounted on their best horses. Henry Chateaulon, looking backward over the distant prairie, exclaimed suddenly that a horseman was approaching, and in truth we could just discern a small black speck slowly moving over the face of a distant swell, like a fly creeping on a wall. It rapidly grew larger as it approached. White man, I believe, said Henry. Look how he ride. India never ride that way. Yes, he got rifle on the saddle before him. The horseman disappeared in a hollow of the prairie, but we soon saw him again, and as he came riding at a gallop toward us through the crowd of Indians, his long hair streaming in the wind behind him, we recognized the ruddy face and old buckskin frock of Jean-Gras, the trapper. He was just arrived from Fort Laramie, where he had been on a visit, and he said he had a message for us. A trader named Bisonnet, one of Henry's friends, was lately come from the settlements and intended to go with a party of men to La Bonne's camp, where, as Jean-Gras assured us, ten or twelve villages of Indians would certainly assemble. Bisonnet desired that we would cross over and meet him there, and promised that his men should protect our horses and baggage while we went among the Indians. Shaw and I stopped our horses and held a council, and in an evil hour resolved to go. For the rest of that day's journey, our course and that of the Indians was the same. In less than an hour we came to where the high barren prairie terminated, sinking down abruptly in steep descent, and standing on these heights we saw below us a great level meadow. Laramie Creek bounded on the left, sweeping along in the shadow of the declivities, and passing with its shallow and rapid current just below us. We sat on horseback, waiting and looking on, while the whole savage array went pouring past us, hurrying down the descent and spreading themselves over the meadow below. In a few moments the plane was swarming with the moving multitude, some just visible like specks in the distance, others still passing on, pressing down, and fording the stream with bustle and confusion. On the edge of the heights sat half a dozen of the elder warriors, gravely smoking, and looking down with unmoved faces on the wild and striking spectacle. Up went the lodges in a circle on the margin of the stream. For the sake of quiet we pitched our tent among some trees at half a mile's distance. In the afternoon we were in the village. The day was a glorious one, and the whole camp seemed lively and animated in sympathy. Groups of children and young girls were laughing gaily on the outside of the lodges. The shields, the lances, and the bows were removed from the tall tripods on which they usually hung before the dwellings of their owners. The warriors were mounting their horses, and one by one, riding away over the prairie toward the neighboring hills. Shaw and I sat on the grass near the lodge of Raynal. An old woman with true Indian hospitality brought a bowl of boiled venison and placed it before us. We amused ourselves with watching half a dozen young squaws who were playing together and chasing each other in and out of one of the lodges. Suddenly the wild yell of the war whoop came peeling from the hills. A crowd of horsemen appeared, rushing down their sides and riding at full speed toward the village, each warrior's long hair flying behind him in the wind like a ship's streamer. As they approached the confused throng assumed a regular order, and entering two by two, they circled around the area at full gallop, each warrior singing his war song as he rode. Some of their dresses were splendid. They wore superb crests of feathers and close tunics of antelope skins, fringed with the scalp locks of their enemies. Their shields, too, were often fluttering with the war eagle's feathers. All had bows and arrows at their back. Some carried long lances, and a few were armed with guns. The white shield, their partisan, rode in gorgeous attire at their head, mounted on a black and white horse. Matto, Tatanka, and his brothers took no part in this parade, for they were in mourning for their sister, and were all sitting in their lodges, their bodies bedubbed from head to foot with white clay, and a lock of hair cut from each of their foreheads. The warriors circled three times round the village, and as each distinguished champion passed, the old women would scream out his name in honor of his bravery and to incite the emulation of the younger warriors. Little urchins, not two years old, followed the warlike pageant with glittering eyes, and looked with eager wonder and admiration at those whose honors were proclaimed by the public voice of the village. Thus early is the lesson of war instilled into the mind of an Indian, and such are the stimulants which incite his thirst for martial renown. The procession rode out of the village as it had entered and in half an hour all the warriors had returned again, dropping quietly in, singly or in parties of two or three. As the sun rose next morning, we looked across the meadow and could see the lodges leveled and the Indians gathering together in preparation to leave the camp. Their course lay to the westward. We turned toward the north, with our men, the four trappers following us, with the Indian family of Moran. We traveled until night. I suffered not a little from pain and weakness. We encamped among some trees by the side of a little brook, and here, during the whole of the next day, we lay waiting for Bisonet, but no Bisonet appeared. Here also two of our trapper friends left us and set out for the Rocky Mountains. On the second morning, despairing of Bisonet's arrival, we resumed our journey, traversing a forlorn and dreary monotony of sunscorched plains where no living thing appeared save here and there an antelope flying before us like the wind. When noon came, we saw an unwanted and most welcome sight, a rich and luxuriant growth of trees, marking the course of a little stream called Horseshoe Creek. We turned gladly toward it. There were lofty and spreading trees standing widely asunder and supporting a thick canopy of leaves above a surface of rich tall grass. The stream ran swiftly as clear as crystal through the bosom of the wood, sparkling over its bed of white sand and darkening again as it entered a deep cavern of leaves and boughs. I was thoroughly exhausted and flung myself on the ground, scarcely able to move. All that afternoon, I lay in the shade by the side of the stream, and those bright woods and sparkling waters are associated in my mind with recollections of lassitude and utter prostration. When night came, I sat down by the fire, longing with an intensity of which at this moment I can hardly conceive for some powerful stimulant. In the morning, as glorious a sun rose upon us as ever animated that desolate wilderness, we advanced and soon were surrounded by tall, bare hills overspread from top to bottom with prickly pairs and other cacti that seemed like clinging reptiles. A plain, flat and hard and with scarcely the vestige of grass lay before us, and a line of tall, misshapen trees bounded the onward view. There was no sight or sound of man or beast or any living thing, although behind those trees was the long-looked-for place of rendezvous where we finally hoped to have found the Indians congregated by thousands. We looked and listened anxiously. We pushed forward with our best speed and forced our horses through the trees. There were copes of some extent beyond, with a scanty stream creeping through their midst, and as we pressed through the yielding branches, deer sprang up to the right and left. At length we caught a glimpse of the prairie beyond. Soon we emerged upon it and saw not a plain covered with encampments and swarming with life, but a vast, unbroken desert stretching away before us, league upon league, without a bush or a tree or anything that had life. We drew rain and gave to the winds our sentiments concerning the whole aboriginal race of America. Our journey was in vain and much worse than in vain. For myself, I was vexed and disappointed beyond measure as I well knew that a slight aggravation of my disorder would render this false step irrevocable and make it quite impossible to accomplish effectively the design which had led me an arduous journey of between three and 4,000 miles. To fortify myself as well as I could against such a contingency, I resolved that I would not under any circumstances attempt to leave the country until my object was completely gained. And where were the Indians? They were assembled in great numbers at a spot about 20 miles distant and there at that very moment they were engaged in their war-like ceremonies. The scarcity of buffalo in the vicinity of Labonte's camp, which would render their supply of provisions scanty and precarious, had probably prevented them from assembling there. But of all this, we knew nothing until some weeks after. Shaw lashed his horse and galloped forward. I, though much more vexed than he, was not strong enough to adopt this convenient vent to my feelings, so I followed at a quiet pace, but in no quiet mood. We rode up to a solitary old tree which seemed the only place fit for encampment. Half its branches were dead, and the rest were so scantily furnished with leaves that they cast but a meager and rich in shade. And the old twisted trunk alone furnished sufficient protection from the sun. We threw down our saddles in the strip of shadow that had cast and sat down upon them. In silent indignation we remained smoking for an hour or more, shifting our saddles with the shifting shadow, for the sun was intolerably hot. End of CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIII. HUNTING INDIANS. At last we had reached Labonte's camp, toward which our eyes had turned so long. Of all weary hours, those that passed between noon and sunset of the day when we arrived there may bear away the palm of exquisite discomfort. I lay under the tree, reflecting on what course to pursue, watching the shadows which seemed never to move and the sun which remained fixed in the sky, and hoping every moment to see the men and horses of Bissonnette emerging from the woods. Shaw and Henry had ridden out on a scouting expedition and did not return until the sun was setting. There was nothing very cheering in their faces, nor in the news they brought. We have been ten miles from here, said Shaw. We climbed the highest butte we could find and could not see a buffalo or Indian, nothing but prairie for twenty miles around us. Henry's horse was quite disabled by clambering up and down the sides of ravines, and Shaw's was severely fatigued. After supper that evening as we sat around the fire, I proposed to Shaw to wait one day longer in hopes of Bissonnette's arrival, and if he should not come, to send DeLaurier with a cart and baggage back to Fort Laramie, while we ourselves followed the whirlwind's village and attempted to overtake it as it passed the mountains. Shaw, not having the same motive for hunting Indians that I had, was averse to the plan. I therefore resolved to go alone. This design I adopted very unwillingly, for I knew that in the present state of my health the attempt would be extremely unpleasant and, as I considered, hazardous. I hoped that Bissonnette would appear in the course of the following day and bring us some information by which to direct our course and enable me to accomplish my purpose by means less objectionable. The rifle of Henry Châtellon was necessary for the subsistence of the party in my absence, so I called Raymond and ordered him to prepare to set out with me. Raymond rolled his eyes vacantly about, but at length, having succeeded in grappling with the idea, he withdrew to his bed under the cart. He was a heavy-molded fellow with a broad face exactly like an owl's, expressing the most impenetrable stupidity and entire self-confidence. As for his good qualities, he had a sort of stubborn fidelity, an insensibility to danger, and a kind of instinct or sagacity which sometimes led him right where better heads than his were at a loss. Besides this, he knew very well how to handle a rifle and picket a horse. Through the following day, the sun glared down upon us with a pitiless penetrating heat. The distant blue prairie seemed quivering under it. The lodge of our Indian associates was baking in the rays, and our rifles as they leaned against the tree were too hot for the touch. There was a dead silence through our camp and all around it, unbroken except by the hum of gnats and mosquitoes. The men, resting their foreheads on their arms, were sleeping under the cart. The Indians kept close within their lodge, except the newly married pair who were seated together under an awning of buffalo robes, and the old conjurer who, with his hard, emaciated face and gaunt ribs, was perched aloft like a turkey buzzard among the dead branches of an old tree, constantly on the lookout for enemies. He would have made a capital shot, a rifle-bullet skillfully planted would have brought him tumbling to the ground. Surely I thought there could be no more harm in shooting such a hideous old villain to see how ugly he would look when he was dead than in shooting the detestable vulture which he resembled. We dined, and then Shaw saddled his horse. I will ride back, said he, to Horst Shoe Creek and see if Beesonette is there. I would go with you, I answered, but I must reserve all the strength I have. The afternoon dragged away at last. I occupied myself in cleaning my rifle and pistols and making other preparations for the journey. After supper, Henry Shattalon and I lay by the fire, discussing the properties of that admirable weapon, the rifle, in the use of which he could fairly outrival leather-stalking himself. It was late before I wrapped myself in my blanket and lay down for the night with my head on my saddle. Shaw had not returned, but this gave no uneasiness for we presumed that he had fallen in with Beesonette and was spending the night with him. For a day or two passed I had gained in strength and health, but about midnight an attack of pain awoke me, and for some hours I felt no inclination to sleep. The moon was quivering on the broad breast of the plat. Nothing could be heard except those low inexplicable sounds like whisperings and footsteps which no one who has spent the night alone amid deserts and forests will be at a loss to understand. As I was falling asleep, a familiar voice shouting from the distance awoke me again. A rapid step approached the cab and Shaw on foot with his gun in his hand hastily entered. Where's your horse, said I, raising myself on my elbow? Lost, said Shaw. Where's the lawyer? There, I replied, pointing to a confused mass of blankets and buffalo robes. Shaw touched them with the butt of his gun and upspraying our faithful Canadian. Come, DeLaurier, stir up the fire and get me something to eat. Where's Bessonette, asked I. The Lord knows there's nobody at Horseshoe Creek. Shaw had gone back to the spot where we had encamped two days before and finding nothing there but the ashes of our fires, he had tied his horse to the tree while he bathed in the stream. Something startled his horse who broke loose and for two hours Shaw tried in vain to catch him. Sunset approached and it was 12 miles to camp. So he abandoned the attempt and set out on foot to join us. The greater part of his perilous and solitary work was performed in darkness. His moccasins were worn to tatters and his feet severely lacerated. He sat down to eat, however, with the usual equanimity of his temper and not at all disturbed by his misfortune and my last recollection before falling asleep was of Shaw seated cross-legged before the fire, smoking his pipe. The horse, I may as well mention here, was found the next morning by Henry Shatelot. When I awoke again there was a fresh damp smell in the air, a gray twilight involved the prairie and above its eastern verge was a streak of cold red sky. I called to the men and in a moment of fire was blazing brightly in the dim morning light and breakfast was getting ready. We sat down together on the grass to the last civilized meal which Raymond and I were destined to enjoy for some time. Now bring in the horses. My little mare Pauline was soon standing by the fire. She was a fleet hardy and gentle animal, christened after Paul Dorian from whom I had procured her in exchange for Pontiac. She did not look as if equipped for a morning pleasure ride. In front of the black high bowed mountain saddle, holsters with heavy pistols were fastened. A pair of saddle bags, a blanket tightly rolled, a small parcel of Indian presents tied up in a buffalo skin, a leather bag of flour and a smaller one of tea were all secured behind and a long trail rope was wound round her neck. Raymond had a strong black mule equipped in a similar manner. We crammed our powder horns to the throat and mounted. I will meet you at Fort Laramie on the 1st of August, said I to Shaw. That is, replied he, if we don't meet before that, I think I shall follow after you in a day or two. This, in fact, he attempted, and he would have succeeded if he had not encountered obstacles against which his resolute spirit was of no avail. Two days after I left him, he sent Deloria to the fort with a cart and baggage and set out for the mountains with Henry Chattelon. But a tremendous thunderstorm had deluged the prairie and nearly obliterated not only our trail but that of the Indians themselves. They followed along the base of the mountains at a loss in which direction to go. They encamped there, and in the morning Shaw found himself poisoned by Ivy in such a manner that it was impossible for him to travel. So they turned back reluctantly toward Fort Laramie. Shaw's limbs were swollen to double their usual size and he rode in great pain. They encamped again within 20 miles of the fort and reached it early on the following morning. Shaw lay seriously ill for a week and remained at the fort till I rejoined him some time after. To return to my own story, we shook hands with our friends, rode out upon the prairie and clambering the sandy hollows that were channeled on the sides of the hills gained the high plains above. If a curse had been pronounced upon the land it could not have worn an aspect of more dreary and forlorn barrenness. There were abrupt broken hills, deep hollows and wide plains, but all alike layered with an insupportable whiteness under the burning sun. The country, as if parched by the heat, had cracked into innumerable fissures and ravines that not a little impeded our progress. Their steep sides were white and raw and along the bottom we several times discovered the broad tracks of the terrific grizzly bear, nowhere more abundant than in this region. The ridges of the hills were hard as rock and strewn with pebbles of flint and coarse red jasper. Looking from them there was nothing to relieve the desert uniformity of the prospect, save here and there a pine tree clinging at the edge of a ravine and stretching out its rough shaggy arms. Under the scorching heat these melancholy trees diffused their peculiar resinous odor through the sultry air. There was something in it as I approached them that recalled old associations. The pine clad mountains of New England, traversed in days of health and buoyancy, rose like a reality before my fancy. In passing that arid waste I was goaded with a morbid thirst produced by my disorder and I thought with a longing desire on the crystal treasure poured in such wasteful profusion from our thousand hills. Shutting my eyes I more than half believed that I heard the deep plunging and gurgling of waters in the bowels of the shaded rocks. I could see their dark ice glittering far down amid the crevices and the cold drops trickling from the long green bosses. When noon came we found a little stream with a few trees and bushes and here we rested for an hour. Then we traveled on guided by the sun until just before sunset we reached another stream called Bitter Cottonwood Creek. A thick growth of bushes and old storm-beaten trees grew at intervals along its bank. Near the foot of one of the trees we flung down our saddles and hobbling our horses turned them loose to feed. The little stream was clear and swift and ran musically on its white sands. Small water birds were splashing in the shallows and filling the air with their cries and flutterings. The sun was just sinking among gold and crimson clouds behind Mount Laramie. I well remember how I lay upon a log by the margin of the water and watched the restless motions of the little fish in a deep still nook below. Strange to say, I seem to have gained strength since the morning and almost felt a sense of returning health. We built our fire. Night came and the wolves began to howl. One deep voice commenced and it was answered in awful responses from the hills, the plains and the woods along the stream above and below us. Such sounds need not and do not disturb one's sleep upon the prairie. We picketed the mare and the mule close at our feet and did not wake until daylight. Then we turned them loose, still hobbled to feed for an hour before starting. We were getting ready our morning's meal when Raymond saw an antelope at half a mile's distance and said he would go and shoot it. Your business, said I, is to look after the animals. I am too weak to do much if anything happens to them and you must keep within sight of the camp. Raymond promised and set out with his rifle in his hand. The animals had passed across the stream and were feeding among the long grass on the other side, much tormented by the attacks of the numerous large green-headed flies. As I watched them, I saw them go down into a hollow and as several minutes elapsed without their reappearing, I waded through the stream to look after them. To my vexation and alarm, I discovered them at a great distance, galloping away at full speed, Pauline in advance with her hobbles broken and the mule still fettered following with awkward leaps. I fired my rifle and shouted to recall Raymond. In a moment he came running through the stream with a red handkerchief bound round his head. I pointed to the fugitives and ordered him to pursue them. Muddering a satchel between his teeth, he set out at full speed, still swinging his rifle in his hand. I walked up to the top of a hill and, looking away over the prairie, could just distinguish the runaways still at full gallop. Returning to the fire, I sat down at the foot of a tree. Wearily and anxiously, hour after hour, passed away. The old loose bark dangling from the trunk behind me flapped to and fro in the wind and the mosquitoes kept up their incessant drowsy humming. But other than this, there was no sight nor sound of life throughout the burning landscape. The sun rose higher and higher until the shadows fell almost perpendicularly and I knew that it must be noon. It seemed scarcely possible that the animals could be recovered. If they were not, my situation was one of serious difficulty. Shaw, when I left him, had decided to move that morning but wither he had not determined. To look for him would be a vain attempt. Fort Laramie was 40 miles distant and I could not walk a mile without great effort. Not then having learned the sound philosophy of yielding to disproportionate obstacles, I resolved to continue in any event the pursuit of the Indians. Only one plan occurred to me. This was to send Raymond to the fort with an order for more horses while I remained on the spot awaiting his return, which might take place within three days. But the adoption of this resolution did not wholly allay my anxiety for it involved both uncertainty and danger. To remain stationary and alone for three days in a country full of dangerous Indians was not the most flattering of prospects and protracted as my Indian hunt must be by such delay, it was not easy to foretell its ultimate result. Revolving these matters I grew hungry and as our stock of provisions except four or five pounds of flour was by this time exhausted, I left the camp to see what game I could find. Nothing could be seen except four or five large curlew, which with their loud screaming were wheeling over my head and now and then alighting upon the prairie. I shot two of them and was about returning when a startling sight caught my eye. A small dark object like a human head suddenly appeared and vanished among the thick bushes along the stream below. In that country every stranger is a suspected enemy. Instinctively I threw forward the muzzle of my rifle. In a moment the bushes were violently shaken. Two heads but not human heads protruded and to my great joy I recognized the downcast disconsolate countenance of the black mule and the yellow visage of Pauline. Raymond came upon the mule pale and haggard complaining of a fiery pain in his chest. I took charge of the animals while he kneeled down by the side of the stream to drink. He had kept the runaways in sight as far as the side fork of Laramie Creek, a distance of more than ten miles, and here with great difficulty he had succeeded in catching them. I saw that he was unarmed and asked him what he had done with his rifle. It had encumbered him in his pursuit and he had dropped it on the prairie, thinking that he could find it on his return, but in this he had failed. The loss might prove a very formidable one. I was too much rejoiced, however, at the recovery of the animals to think much about it and having made some tea for Raymond in a tin vessel which we had brought with us, I told him that I would give him two hours for resting before we set out again. He had eaten nothing that day, but having no appetite he laid down immediately to sleep. I picketed the animals among the richest grass that I could find and made fires of green wood to protect them from the flies. Then sitting down again by the tree I watched the slow movements of the sun begrudging every moment that passed. The time I had mentioned expired and I awoke Raymond. We saddled and set out again, but first we went in search of the lost rifle and in the course of an hour Raymond was fortunate enough to find it. Then we turned westward and moved over the hills and hollows at a slow pace toward the black hills. The heat no longer tormented us for a cloud was before the sun, yet that day shall never be marked with white in my calendar. The air began to grow fresh and cool. The distant mountains frowned more gloomily. There was low muttering of thunder and dense black masses of cloud rose heavily behind the broken peaks. At first they were gaily furnished with silver by the afternoon sun, but soon the thick blackness overspread the whole sky and the desert around us was wrapped in deep gloom. I scarcely heated it at the time, but now I cannot but feel that there was an awful sublimity in the horse murmuring of the thunder in the somber shadows that involved the mountains and the plain. The storm broke. It came upon us with a zigzag blinding flash with a terrific crash of thunder and with a hurricane that howled over the prairie, dashing floods of water against us. The raiment looked round and cursed the merciless elements. There seemed no shelter near, but we discerned in length the deep ravine gashed in the level prairie and saw halfway down its side an old pine tree whose rough horizontal boughs formed a sort of penthouse against the tempest. We found a practicable passage and hastily descending fastened our animals to some large loose stones at the bottom. Then climbing up, we drew our blankets over our heads and seated ourselves close beneath the old tree. Perhaps I was no competent judge of time, but it seemed to me that we were sitting there a full hour while around us poured a denuge of rain through which the rocks on the opposite side of the gulf were barely visible. The first burst of the tempest soon subsided but the rain poured steadily. As length raiment grew impatient and scrambling out of the ravine he gained the level prairie above. What does the weather look like when I asked I from my seat under the tree? It looks bad, he answered, dark all around. And again he descended and sat down by my side. Some ten minutes he lapsed. Go up again, said I, and take another look. And he clambered up the precipice. Well, how is it? Just the same. Only I see one little bright spot over the top of the mountain. The rain by this time had begun to abate Going down to the bottom of the ravine we loosened the animals who were standing up to their knees in water. Leading them up the rocky throat of the ravine we reached the plain above. Am I, I thought to myself, the same man who a few months since was seated, a quiet student of Belle Lettre in a cushioned armchair by a sea coal fire? All around us was obscurity but the bright spot above the mountaintops grew wider and rudderier until at length the clouds drew apart and a flood of sunbeams poured down from heaven streaming along the precipices and involving them in a thin blue haze as soft and lovely as that which wraps the Apennines on an evening in spring. Rapidly the clouds were broken and scattered like routed legions of evil spirits. The plain lay basking in sunbeams around us. A rainbow arched the desert from north to south and far in front a line of wood seemed inviting us to refreshment and repose. When we reached them they were glistening with prismatic dew drops and enlivened by the song and flutterings of a hundred birds. Strange winged insects, benumbed by the rain, were clinging to the leaves and bark of the trees. Raymond kindled a fire with great difficulty. The animals turned eagerly to feed on the soft, rich grass while I, wrapping myself in my blanket, lay down and gazed on the evening landscape. The mountains whose stern features had loured upon us with so gloomy and awful a frown now seemed lighted up with a serene, benign smile and the green-waving undulations of the plain were gladdened with a rich sunshine. Wet, ill, and wearied as I was, my spirit grew lighter at the view and I drew from it an augury of good for my future prospects. When morning came Raymond awoke coughing violently, though I had apparently received no injury. We mounted, crossed the little stream, pushed through the trees and began our journey over the plain beyond. And now, as we rode slowly along, we looked anxiously on every hand for traces of the Indians, not doubting that the village had passed somewhere in that vicinity. But the scanty, shriveled grass was not more than three or four inches high and the ground was of such unyielding hardness that a host might have marched over it and left scarcely a trace of its passage. Up hill and downhill and clambering through ravines we continued our journey. As we were skirting the foot of a hill, I saw Raymond, who was some rods in advance, suddenly jerking the reins of his mule, sliding from his seat and running in a crouching posture up a hollow, he disappeared, and then in an instant I heard the sharp quick crack of his rifle. A wounded antelope came running on three legs over the hill. I lashed Pauline and made after him. My fleet little Amer soon brought me by his side, and after leaping and bounding for a few moments in vain, he stood still, as if despairing of escape. His glistening eyes turned up toward my face with so piteous a look that it was with feelings of infinite compunction that I shot him through the head with a pistol. Raymond skinned and cut him up, and we hung the forequarters to our saddles, much rejoiced that our exhausted stock of provisions was renewed in such good time. Gaining the top of a hill, we could see along the cloudy verge of the prairie before us lines of trees and shadowy groves that marked the course of Laramie Creek. Sometime before noon we reached its banks and began anxiously to search them for footprints of the Indians. We followed the stream for several miles, now on the shore and now wading in the water, scrutinizing every sandbar and every muddy bank. So long was the search that we began to fear that we had left the trail undiscovered behind us. At length I heard Raymond shouting and saw him jump from his mule to examine some object under the shelving bank. I rode up to his side. It was the clear and palpable impression of an Indian moccasin. Encouraged by this we continued our search and at last some appearances on a soft surface of earth not far from the shore attracted my eye. And going to examine them, I found half a dozen tracks, some made by men and some by children. Just then, Raymond observed across the stream the mouth of a small branch entering it from the south. He forwarded the water, rode in at the opening, and in a moment I heard him shouting again so I passed over and joined him. The little branch had a broad sandy bed along which the water trickled in a scanty stream. And on either bank the bushes were so close that the view was completely intercepted. I found Raymond stooping over the footprints of three or four horses. Proceeding we found those of a man, then those of a child, then those of more horses. And at last the bushes on each bank were beaten down and broken and the sand plowed up with a multitude of footsteps and scored across with the furrows made by the lodge poles that had been dragged through. It was now certain that we had found the trail. I pushed through the bushes and at a little distance on the prairie beyond found the ashes of 150 lodge fires with bones and pieces of buffalo robes scattered around them. And in some instances the pickets to which horses had been secured still standing in the ground. Elated by our success we selected a convenient tree and turning the animals loose prepared to make a meal from the fat haunch of our victim. Hardship and exposure had thriven with me wonderfully. I had gained both health and strength since leaving Le Bonc's camp. Raymond and I made a hearty meal together in high spirits for we rashly presumed that having found one end of the trail we should have little difficulty in reaching the other. But when the animals were let in we found that our old ill luck had not ceased to follow us close. As I was saddling Pauline I saw that her eye was as dull as lead and the hue of her yellow coat visibly darkened. I placed my foot in the stirrup to mount when instantly she staggered and fell flat on her side. Gaining her feet with an effort she stood by the fire with a drooping head. Whether she had been bitten by a snake or poisoned by some noxious plant or attacked by a sudden disorder it was hard to say. But at all events her sickness was sufficiently ill-timed and unfortunate. I succeeded in a second attempt to mount her and with a slow pace we moved forward on the trail of the Indians. It led us up a hill and over a dreary plain and here to our great mortification the traces almost disappeared. For the ground was as hard as adamant and if its flinty surface had ever retained the print of a hoof the marks had been washed away by the deluge of yesterday. An Indian village in its disorderly march is scattered over the prairie off into the width of a full half a mile so that its trail is nowhere clearly marked and the task of following it is made doubly wearisome and difficult. By good fortune plenty of large ant hills, a yard or more in diameter were scattered over the plain and these were frequently broken by the footprints of men and horses and marked by traces of the lodge poles. The succulent leaves of the prickly pear also bruised from the same causes helped a little to guide us so inch by inch we moved along. Often we lost the trail all together and then would recover it again but late in the afternoon we found ourselves totally at fault. We stood alone without clue to guide us. The broken plain expanded for league after league around us and in front the long dark ridge of mountains was stretching from north to south. Mount Laramie, a little on our right, towered high above the rest and from a dark valley just beyond one of its lower declivities we discerned volumes of white smoke slowly rolling up into the clear air. I think, said Raymond, some Indians must be there. Perhaps we had better go. But this plan was not rashly to be adopted and we determined still to continue our search after the lost trail. Our good stars prompted us to this decision for we afterward had reason to believe from information given us by the Indians that the smoke was raised as a decoy by a crow war party. Evening was coming on and there was no wood or water nearer than the foot of the mountains. So, thither we turned directing our course toward the point where Laramie Creek issues forth upon the prairie. When we reached it, the bare tops of the mountains were still brightened with sunshine. The little river was breaking with a vehement and angry current from its dark prison. There was something in the near vicinity of the mountains in the loud surging of the rapids wonderfully cheering and exhilarating. For although once as familiar as home itself they had been for months strangers to my experience. There was a rich grass plot by the river's bank surrounded by low ridges which would effectually screen ourselves in our fire from the side of wandering Indians. Here among the grass I observed numerous circles of large stones which as Raymond said were traces of a Dakota winter encampment. We lay down and did not awake till the sun was up. A large rock projected from the shore and behind it the deep water was slowly eddying round and round. The temptation was irresistible. I threw off my clothes, leaped in and suffered myself to be born once round with the current and then seizing the strong root of a water plant and drew myself to the shore. The effect was so invigorating and refreshing that I mistook it for returning health. Pauline thought I, as I led the little mare up to be saddled, only thrive as I do and you and I will have sport yet among the buffalo beyond these mountains. But scarcely were we mounted and on our way before the momentary glow passed. Again I hung as usual in my seat scarcely able to hold myself erect. Look yonder, said Raymond. You see that big hollow there? The Indians must have gone that way if they went anywhere about here. We reached the gap which was like a deep notch cut into the mountain ridge and here we soon discerned an ant hill furrowed with the mark of a lodge pole. This was quite enough. There could be no doubt now. As we rode on, the opening growing narrower, the Indians had been compelled to march in closer order and the traces became numerous and distinct. The gap terminated in a rocky gateway leading into a rough passage upward between two precipitous mountains. Here grass and weeds were bruised to fragments by the throng that had passed through. We moved slowly over the rocks, up the passage, and in this toilsome manner we advanced for an hour or two, bare precipices hundreds of feet high shooting up on either hand. Raymond, with his hearty mule, was a few rods before me when we came to the foot of an ascent steeper than the rest and which I trusted might prove the highest point of the defile. Pauline strained upward for a few yards, moaning and stumbling and then came to a dead stop, unable to proceed further. I dismounted and attempted to lead her, but my own exhausted strength soon gave out so I loosened the trail rope from her neck and tying it round my arm, crawled up on my hands and knees. I gained the top, totally exhausted, the sweat drops trickling from my forehead. Pauline stood like a statue by my side, her shadow falling upon the scorching rock, and in this shade, for there was no other, I lay for some time, scarcely able to move a limb. All around the black crags, sharp as needles at the top, stood glowing in the sun, without a tree or a bush or a blade of grass to cover their precipitous sides. The whole scene seemed parched with a pitiless insufferable heat. After a while I could mount again and we moved on, descending the rocky defile on its western side. Thinking of that morning's journey, it has sometimes seemed to me that there was something ridiculous in my position. A man armed to the teeth, but wholly unable to fight and equally so to run away, traversing a dangerous wilderness on a sick horse. But these thoughts were retrospective, for at the time I was in too grave a mood to entertain a very lively sense of the ludicrous. Raymond's saddle girth slipped, and while I proceeded, he was stopping behind to repair the mischief. I came to the top of a little declivity where a most welcome sight greeted my eye. A nook of fresh green grass nestled among the cliffs, sunny clumps of bushes on one side, and shaggy old pine trees leaning forward from the rocks on the other. A shrill, familiar voice saluted me and recalled me to days of boyhood, that of the insect called the locust by New England schoolboys, which was fast clinging among the heated boughs of the old pine trees. Then, too, as I passed the bushes, the low sound of falling water reached my ear. Pauline turned to her own accord, and pushing through the boughs, we found a black rock overarched by the cool green canopy. An icy stream was pouring from its side into a wide basin of white sand, from whence it had no visible outlet but filtered through into the soil below. While I filled a tin cup at the spring, Pauline was eagerly plunging her head deep in the pool. Other visitors had been there before us. All around in the soft soil were the footprints of elk, deer, and the Rocky Mountain sheep, and the grizzly bear, too, had left the recent prints of his broad foot with its frightful array of claws. Among these mountains was his home. Soon after leaving the spring, we found a little grassy plain encircled by the mountains and marked to our great joy with all the traces of an Indian camp. Raymond's practiced eye detected certain signs by which he recognized the spot where Raynall's lodge had been pitched and his horses picketed. I approached and stood looking at the place. Raynall and I had, I believe, hardly a feeling in common. I disliked the fellow and it perplexed me a good deal to understand why I should look with so much interest on the ashes of his fire when, between him and me, there seemed no other bond of sympathy than the slender and precarious one of a kindred race. In half an hour from this, we were clear of the mountains. There was a plain before us, totally barren and thickly peopled in many parts with the little prairie dogs who sat at the mouths of their burrows and yelped at us as we passed. The plain, as we thought, was about six miles wide, but it cost us two hours to cross it. Then another mountain range rose before us, grander and more wild than the last had been. Far out of the dense shrubbery that clothed the steeps for a thousand feet, shot up black crags all leaning one way and shattered by storms and thunder into grim and threatening shapes. As we entered a narrow passage on the trail of the Indians, they impended frightfully on one side above our heads. Our course was through dense woods in the shade and twinkling sunlight of overhanging boughs. I would, I could recall to mind all the startling combinations that presented themselves. As winding from side to side of the passage to avoid its obstructions, we could see glancing at intervals through the foliage, the awful forms of the gigantic cliffs that seemed at times to hem us in on the right and on the left before us and behind. Another scene in a few moments greeted us, a tract of gray and sunny woods broken into knolls and hollows and livened by birds and interspersed with flowers. Among the rest I recognized the mellow whistle of the robin, an old-familiar friend whom I had scarce expected to meet in such a place. Humble bees, too, were buzzing heavily about the flowers, and of these a species of lark spur caught my eye. More appropriate it should seem to cultivated gardens than to a remote wilderness. Instantly it recalled a multitude of dormant and delightful recollections. Leaving behind us this spot and its associations, a sight soon presented itself characteristic of that warlike region. In an open space, fenced in by high rocks, stood two Indian forts of a square form, rudely built of sticks and logs. They were somewhat ruinous, having probably been constructed the year before. Each might have contained about twenty men. Perhaps in this gloomy spot some party had been beset by their enemies, and those scowling rocks and blasted trees might not long since have looked down on a conflict uncronical and unknown. Yet if any traces of bloodshed remain, they were completely hidden by the bushes and tall rank weeds. Gradually the mountains drew apart and the passage expanded into a plain, where again we found traces of an Indian encampment. There were trees and bushes just before us, and we stopped here for an hour's rest and refreshment. When we had finished our meal, Raymond struck fire and lighting his pipe sat down at the foot of a tree to smoke. For some time I observed him puffing away with a face of unusual solemnity, then slowly taking the pipe from his lips, he looked up and remarked that we had better not go any farther. Why not, asked I. He said that the country was becoming very dangerous and that we were entering the range of the snakes, Arapahos, and grovantra blackfeet, and that if any of their wandering parties should meet us, it would cost us our lives. But he added, with a blunt fidelity that nearly reconciled me to his stupidity, that he would go anywhere I wished. I told him to bring up the animals and mounting them we proceeded again. I confessed that, as we moved forward, the prospect seemed but a dreary and doubtful one. I would have given the world for my ordinary elasticity of body and mind, and for a horse of such strength and spirit as the journey required. Closer and closer the rocks gathered round us, growing taller and steeper and pressing more and more upon our path, we entered at length a defile which I never had seen rival. The mountain was cracked from top to bottom and we were creeping along the bottom of the fissure in dampness and gloom with the clink of hoofs and the loose shingly rocks and the horse murmuring of a petulant brook which kept us company. Sometimes the water foaming among the stones overspread the whole narrow passage. Sometimes withdrawing to one side it gave us room to pass dry shot. Looking up we could see a narrow ribbon of bright blue sky between the dark edges of the opposing cliffs. This did not last long. The passage soon widened and sunbeams found their way down, flashing upon the black waters. The defile would spread out to many rods and width. Bushes, trees, and flowers would spring by the side of the brook. The cliffs would be feathered with shrubbery that clung in every crevice and fringed with trees that grew along their sunny edges. Then we would be moving again in the darkness. The passage seemed about four miles long and before we reached the end of it the unshad hoofs of our animals were lamentably broken and their legs cut by the sharp stones. Issuing from the mountain we found another plane. All around it stood a circle of lofty precipices that seemed the impersonation of silence and solitude. Here again the Indians had encamped as well they might after passing with their women, children, and horses through the gulf behind us. In one day we had made a journey which had cost them three to accomplish. The only outlet to this amphitheater lay over a hill some 200 feet high up which we moved with difficulty. Looking from the top we saw that at last we were free of the mountains. The prairie spread before us but so wild and broken that the view was everywhere obstructed. Far on our left one tall hill swelled up against the sky on the smooth pale green surface of which four slowly moving black specks were discernible. They were evidently buffalo and we held the sight as a good augury for where the buffalo were there too the Indians would probably be found. We hoped on that very night to reach the village. We were anxious to do so for a double reason wishing to bring our worrisome journey to an end and knowing moreover that though to enter the village in broad daylight would be a perfectly safe experiment yet to encamp in its vicinity would be dangerous. But as we rode on the sun was sinking and soon was within half an hour of the horizon. We ascended a hill and looked round us for a spot for our encampment. The prairie was like a turbulent ocean suddenly congealed when its waves were at the highest and it lay half in light and half in shadow as the rich sunshine yellow as gold was pouring over it. The rough bushes of the wild sage were growing everywhere its dull pale green over spreading hill and hollow. Yet a little way before us a bright verdant line of grass was winding along the plain and here and there throughout its course water was glistening darkly. We went down to it kindled a fire and turned our horses loose to feed. It was a little trickling brook that for some yards on either bank turned the barren prairie into fertility and here and there it spread into deep pools where the beaver had dammed it up. We placed our last remaining piece of the antelope before a scanty fire mournfully reflecting on our exhausted stock of provisions. Just then an enormous gray hair peculiar to these prairies came jumping along and seated himself within 50 yards to look at us. I thoughtlessly raised my rifle to shoot him but Raymond called out to me not to fire for fear the report should reach the years of the Indians. That night for the first time we considered that the danger to which we were exposed was of a somewhat serious character and to those who were unacquainted with Indians it may seem strange that our chief apprehensions arose from the supposed proximity of the people whom we intended to visit. Had any straggling party of these faithful friends caught sight of us from the hilltop they would probably have returned in the night to plunder us of our horses and perhaps of our scalps. But we were on the prairie where the genious loci is at war with all nervous apprehensions and I presume that neither Raymond nor I thought twice of the matter that evening. While he was looking after the animals I sat by the fire engaged in the novel task of baking bread. The utensils were the most simple and primitive kind consisting of two sticks inclining over the bed of coals one end thrust into the ground while the dough was twisted in a spiral form round the other. Under such circumstances all the Epicurean and a man's nature is apt to awaken within him. I revisited in fancy the far distant abodes of good fare. Not indeed Frascades or the Trois Frères Provençois for that were too extreme a flight. But no other than the homely table of my old friend and host Tom Crawford of the White Mountains. By a singular revulsion Tom himself whom I well remember to have looked upon as the impersonation of all that is wild and backwards been like now appeared before me as the ministering angel of comfort and good living. Being fatigued and drowsy I began to doze and my thoughts following the same train of association assumed another form. Half dreaming I saw myself surrounded with the mountains of New England, alive with waterfalls their black crags tinctured with milk-white mists. For this reverie I paid a speedy penalty for the bread was black on one side and soft on the other. For eight hours Raymond and I pillowed on our saddles lay insensible as logs. Pauline's yellow head was stretched over me when I awoke. I got up and examined her. Her feet indeed were bruised and swollen by the accidents of yesterday but her eye was brighter, her motions livelier and her mysterious malady had visibly abated. We moved on hoping within an hour to come inside of the Indian village but again disappointment awaited us. The trail disappeared, melting away upon a hard and stony plain. Raymond and I separating road from side to side scrutinizing every yard of ground until at length I discerned traces of the lodge poles passing by the side of a ridge of rocks. We began again to follow them. What is that black spot out there on the prairie? It looks like a dead buffalo, answered Raymond. We rode out to it and found it to be the huge carcass of a bull killed by the Indians as they had passed. Tangled hair and scraps of hide were scattered all around for the wolves had been making merry over it and had hollowed out the entire carcass. It was covered with myriads of large black crickets and from its appearance must certainly have lain there for four or five days. The site was a most disheartening one and I observed to Raymond that the Indians might still be 50 or 60 miles before us but he shook his head and replied that they dared not go so far for fear of their enemies, the snakes. Soon after this we lost the trail again and ascended a neighboring ridge totally in a loss. Before us lay a plane perfectly flat spreading on the right and left without apparent limit and bounded in front by a long broken line of hills 10 or 12 miles distant. All was open and exposed to view yet not a buffalo nor an Indian was visible. You see that said Raymond. Now we had better turn round. But as Raymond's bourgeois thought otherwise we descended the hill and began to cross the plane. We had come so far that I knew perfectly well neither Pauline's limbs nor my own could carry me back to Fort Laramie. I considered that the lines of expediency and inclination tallied exactly and that the most prudent course was to keep forward. The ground immediately around us was thickly strewn with the skulls and bones of Buffalo for here a year or two before the Indians had made us surround. Yet no living game presented itself. At length however an antelope sprang up and gazed at us. We fired together and by a singular fatality we both missed although the animal stood a fair mark within 80 yards. This ill success might perhaps be charged to our own eagerness for by this time we had no provision left except a little flower. We could discern several small lakes or rather extensive pools of water glistening in the distance. As we approached them wolves and antelopes bounded away through the tall grass that grew in their vicinity and flocks of large white plover flew screaming over their surface. Having failed to the antelope Raymond tried his hand at the birds with the same ill success. The water also disappointed us. Its muddy margin was so beaten up by the crowd of Buffalo that our timorous animals were afraid to approach. So we turned away and moved toward the hills. The ranked grass where it was not trampled down by the Buffalo fairly swept our horses' necks. Again we found the same executable Baron Prairie offering no clue by which to guide our way. As we drew near the hills an opening appeared through which the Indians must have gone if they had passed that way at all. Slowly we began to ascend it. I felt the most dreary forebodings of ill success went on looking round. I could discover neither dent of hoof nor footprint nor trace of lodgepole. Though the passage was encumbered by the ghastly skulls of Buffalo, we heard thunder muttering. A storm was coming on. As we gained the top of the gap the prospect beyond began to disclose itself. First we saw a long dark line of ragged clouds upon the horizon while above them rose the peak of the medicine bow, the vanguard of the Rocky Mountains. Then little by little the plain came into view. A vast green uniformity, forlorn and tenantless, though Laramie Creek listened in a waving line over its surface without a bush or tree upon its banks. As yet the round projecting shoulder of a hill intercepted a part of the view. I rode in advance when suddenly I could distinguish a few dark spots on the prairie along the bank of the stream. Buffalo said I. Then a sudden hope flashed upon me and eagerly and anxiously I looked again. Horses exclaimed Raymond with a tremendous oath lashing his mule forward as he spoke. More and more the plain disclosed itself and in rapid succession more and more horses appeared scattered along the riverbank or feeding in bands over the prairie. Then suddenly standing in a circle by the stream swarming with their savage inhabitants we saw rising before us the tall lodges of the Ogallala. Never did the heart of Wanderer more gladden at the sight of home than did mine at the sight of those wild habitations. End of chapter 13.