After So Many Days
Of Weary Travelling Through A Naked, Monotonous And Silent
Country, It Was Delightful Once More To Hear The Song Of The
Bird, And To Behold The Verdure Of The Grove.
It was a beautiful
sunset, and a sight of the glowing rays, mantling the tree-tops
and rustling branches, gladdened every heart.
They pitched their
camp in the grove, kindled their fires, partook merrily of their
rude fare, and resigned themselves to the sweetest sleep they had
enjoyed since their outset upon the prairies.
The country now became rugged and broken. High bluffs advanced
upon the river, and forced the travellers occasionally to leave
its banks and wind their course into the interior. In one of the
wild and solitary passes they were startled by the trail of four
or five pedestrians, whom they supposed to be spies from some
predatory camp of either Arickara or Crow Indians. This obliged
them to redouble their vigilance at night, and to keep especial
watch upon their horses. In these rugged and elevated regions
they began to see the black-tailed deer, a species larger than
the ordinary kind, and chiefly found in rocky and mountainous
countries. They had reached also a great buffalo range; Captain
Bonneville ascended a high bluff, commanding an extensive view of
the surrounding plains. As far as his eye could reach, the
country seemed absolutely blackened by innumerable herds. No
language, he says, could convey an adequate idea of the vast
living mass thus presented to his eye.
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