On Every Side We Saw The Tokens Of Maturity And
Decay Where All Had Before Been Fresh And Beautiful.
We entered the
forest, and ourselves and our horses were checkered, as we passed
along, by the bright spots of sunlight that fell between the opening
boughs.
On either side the dark rich masses of foliage almost
excluded the sun, though here and there its rays could find their way
down, striking through the broad leaves and lighting them with a pure
transparent green. Squirrels barked at us from the trees; coveys of
young partridges ran rustling over the leaves below, and the golden
oriole, the blue jay, and the flaming red-bird darted among the
shadowy branches. We hailed these sights and sounds of beauty by no
means with an unmingled pleasure. Many and powerful as were the
attractions which drew us toward the settlements, we looked back even
at that moment with an eager longing toward the wilderness of
prairies and mountains behind us. For myself I had suffered more
that summer from illness than ever before in my life, and yet to this
hour I cannot recall those savage scenes and savage men without a
strong desire again to visit them.
At length, for the first time during about half a year, we saw the
roof of a white man's dwelling between the opening trees. A few
moments after we were riding over the miserable log bridge that leads
into the center of Westport. Westport had beheld strange scenes, but
a rougher looking troop than ours, with our worn equipments and
broken-down horses, was never seen even there.
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