FEW Reverses In This Changeful World Are More Complete And
Disheartening Than That Of A Traveller, Suddenly Unhorsed, In The
Midst Of The Wilderness.
Our unfortunate travellers contemplated
their situation, for a time, in perfect dismay.
A long journey
over rugged mountains and immeasurable plains lay before them,
which they must painfully perform on foot, and everything
necessary for subsistence or defense must be carried on their
shoulders. Their dismay, however, was but transient, and they
immediately set to work, with that prompt expediency produced by
the exigencies of the wilderness, to fit themselves for the
change in their condition.
Their first attention was to select from their baggage such
articles as were indispensable to their journey; to make them up
into convenient packs, and to deposit the residue in caches. The
whole day was consumed in these occupations; at night, they made
a scanty meal of their remaining provisions, and lay down to
sleep with heavy hearts. In the morning, they were up and about
at an early hour, and began to prepare their knapsacks for a
march, while Ben Jones repaired to an old beaver trap which he
had set in the river bank at some little distance from the camp.
He was rejoiced to find a middle-sized beaver there, sufficient
for a morning's meal to his hungry comrades. On his way back with
his prize, he observed two heads peering over the edge of an
impending cliff, several hundred feet high, which he supposed to
be a couple of wolves. As he continued on, he now and then cast
his eye up; heads were still there, looking down with fixed and
watchful gaze. A suspicion now flashed across his mind that they
might be Indian scouts; and, had they not been far above the
reach of his rifle, he would undoubtedly have regaled them with a
shot.
On arriving at the camp, he directed the attention of his
comrades to these aerial observers. The same idea was at first
entertained, that they were wolves; but their immovable
watchfulness soon satisfied every one that they were Indians. It
was concluded that they were watching the movements of the party,
to discover their place of concealment of such articles as they
would be compelled to leave behind. There was no likelihood that
the caches would escape the search of such keen eyes and
experienced rummagers, and the idea was intolerable that any more
booty should fall into their hands. To disappoint them,
therefore, the travellers stripped the caches of the articles
deposited there, and collecting together everything that they
could not carry away with them, made a bonfire of all that would
burn, and threw the rest into the river. There was a forlorn
satisfaction in thus balking the Crows, by the destruction of
their own property; and, having thus gratified their pique, they
shouldered their packs, about ten o'clock in the morning, and set
out on their pedestrian wayfaring.
The route they took was down along the banks of Mad River.
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