At Length The Storm
Cleared Away, And The Sharp-Eyed Trapper Succeeded In Discovering His
Tent:
R. had by this time finished his coffee, and was seated on a
buffalo robe smoking his pipe.
The captain was one of the most easy-
tempered men in existence, so he bore his ill-luck with great
composure, shared the dregs of the coffee with his brother, and lay
down to sleep in his wet clothes.
We ourselves had our share of the deluge. We were leading a pair of
mules to Kansas when the storm broke. Such sharp and incessant
flashes of lightning, such stunning and continuous thunder, I have
never known before. The woods were completely obscured by the
diagonal sheets of rain that fell with a heavy roar, and rose in
spray from the ground; and the streams rose so rapidly that we could
hardly ford them. At length, looming through the rain, we saw the
log-house of Colonel Chick, who received us with his usual bland
hospitality; while his wife, who, though a little soured and
stiffened by too frequent attendance on camp-meetings, was not behind
him in hospitable feeling, supplied us with the means of repairing
our drenched and bedraggled condition. The storm, clearing away at
about sunset, opened a noble prospect from the porch of the colonel's
house, which stands upon a high hill. The sun streamed from the
breaking clouds upon the swift and angry Missouri, and on the immense
expanse of luxuriant forest that stretched from its banks back to the
distant bluffs.
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