The Camp Was Breaking Up, And The Squaws Were Moving The
Covering From The Lodge.
I arose and shook off my blanket with the
feeling of perfect health; but scarcely had I gained my feet when a
sense of my helpless condition was once more forced upon me, and I
found myself scarcely able to stand.
Raymond had brought up Pauline
and the mule, and I stooped to raise my saddle from the ground. My
strength was quite inadequate to the task. "You must saddle her,"
said I to Raymond, as I sat down again on a pile of buffalo robes:
"Et hoec etiam fortasse meminisse juvabit."
I thought, while with a painful effort I raised myself into the
saddle. Half an hour after, even the expectation that Virgil's line
expressed seemed destined to disappointment. As we were passing over
a great plain, surrounded by long broken ridges, I rode slowly in
advance of the Indians, with thoughts that wandered far from the time
and from the place. Suddenly the sky darkened, and thunder began to
mutter. Clouds were rising over the hills, as dreary and dull as the
first forebodings of an approaching calamity; and in a moment all
around was wrapped in shadow. I looked behind. The Indians had
stopped to prepare for the approaching storm, and the dark, dense
mass of savages stretched far to the right and left. Since the first
attack of my disorder the effects of rain upon me had usually been
injurious in the extreme.
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