We Rode For An Hour Or Two When A Familiar Cluster Of Buildings
Appeared On A Little Hill.
"Hallo!" shouted the Kickapoo trader from
over his fence.
"Where are you going?" A few rather emphatic
exclamations might have been heard among us, when we found that we
had gone miles out of our way, and were not advanced an inch toward
the Rocky Mountains. So we turned in the direction the trader
indicated, and with the sun for a guide, began to trace a "bee line"
across the prairies. We struggled through copses and lines of wood;
we waded brooks and pools of water; we traversed prairies as green as
an emerald, expanding before us for mile after mile; wider and more
wild than the wastes Mazeppa rode over:
"Man nor brute,
Nor dint of hoof, nor print of foot,
Lay in the wild luxuriant soil;
No sign of travel; none of toil;
The very air was mute."
Riding in advance, we passed over one of these great plains; we
looked back and saw the line of scattered horsemen stretching for a
mile or more; and far in the rear against the horizon, the white
wagons creeping slowly along. "Here we are at last!" shouted the
captain. And in truth we had struck upon the traces of a large body
of horse. We turned joyfully and followed this new course, with
tempers somewhat improved; and toward sunset encamped on a high swell
of the prairie, at the foot of which a lazy stream soaked along
through clumps of rank grass. It was getting dark. We turned the
horses loose to feed. "Drive down the tent-pickets hard," said Henry
Chatillon, "it is going to blow." We did so, and secured the tent as
well as we could; for the sky had changed totally, and a fresh damp
smell in the wind warned us that a stormy night was likely to succeed
the hot clear day. The prairie also wore a new aspect, and its vast
swells had grown black and somber under the shadow of the clouds.
The thunder soon began to growl at a distance. Picketing and
hobbling the horses among the rich grass at the foot of the slope,
where we encamped, we gained a shelter just as the rain began to
fall; and sat at the opening of the tent, watching the proceedings of
the captain. In defiance of the rain he was stalking among the
horses, wrapped in an old Scotch plaid. An extreme solicitude
tormented him, lest some of his favorites should escape, or some
accident should befall them; and he cast an anxious eye toward three
wolves who were sneaking along over the dreary surface of the plain,
as if he dreaded some hostile demonstration on their part.
On the next morning we had gone but a mile or two, when we came to an
extensive belt of woods, through the midst of which ran a stream,
wide, deep, and of an appearance particularly muddy and treacherous.
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