Up This Stream They Now Shaped Their Course For
Several Successive Days, Tending, Generally, To The West.
The
soil was light and sandy; the country much diversified.
Frequently the plains were studded with isolated blocks of rock,
sometimes in the shape of a half globe, and from three to four
hundred feet high.
These singular masses had occasionally a very
imposing, and even sublime appearance, rising from the midst of a
savage and lonely landscape.
As the travellers continued to advance, they became more and more
sensible of the elevation of the country. The hills around were
more generally capped with snow. The men complained of cramps and
colics, sore lips and mouths, and violent headaches. The
wood-work of the wagons also shrank so much that it was with
difficulty the wheels were kept from falling to pieces. The
country bordering upon the river was frequently gashed with deep
ravines, or traversed by high bluffs, to avoid which, the
travellers were obliged to make wide circuits through the plains.
In the course of these, they came upon immense herds of buffalo,
which kept scouring off in the van, like a retreating army.
Among the motley retainers of the camp was Tom Cain, a raw
Irishman, who officiated as cook, whose various blunders and
expedients in his novel situation, and in the wild scenes and
wild kind of life into which he had suddenly been thrown, had
made him a kind of butt or droll of the camp. Tom, however, began
to discover an ambition superior to his station; and the
conversation of the hunters, and their stories of their exploits,
inspired him with a desire to elevate himself to the dignity of
their order.
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