Such A State Of Things Is By No
Means Enviable Anywhere.
In a country where a man's life may at any
moment depend on the strength of his arm, or it may be on the
activity of his legs, it is more particularly inconvenient.
Medical
assistance of course there was none; neither had I the means of
pursuing a system of diet; and sleeping on a damp ground, with an
occasional drenching from a shower, would hardly be recommended as
beneficial. I sometimes suffered the extremity of languor and
exhaustion, and though at the time I felt no apprehensions of the
final result, I have since learned that my situation was a critical
one.
Besides other formidable inconveniences I owe it in a great measure
to the remote effects of that unlucky disorder that from deficient
eyesight I am compelled to employ the pen of another in taking down
this narrative from my lips; and I have learned very effectually that
a violent attack of dysentery on the prairie is a thing too serious
for a joke. I tried repose and a very sparing diet. For a long
time, with exemplary patience, I lounged about the camp, or at the
utmost staggered over to the Indian village, and walked faint and
dizzy among the lodges. It would not do, and I bethought me of
starvation. During five days I sustained life on one small biscuit a
day. At the end of that time I was weaker than before, but the
disorder seemed shaken in its stronghold and very gradually I began
to resume a less rigid diet. No sooner had I done so than the same
detested symptoms revisited me; my old enemy resumed his pertinacious
assaults, yet not with his former violence or constancy, and though
before I regained any fair portion of my ordinary strength weeks had
elapsed, and months passed before the disorder left me, yet thanks to
old habits of activity, and a merciful Providence, I was able to
sustain myself against it.
I used to lie languid and dreamy before our tent and muse on the past
and the future, and when most overcome with lassitude, my eyes turned
always toward the distant Black Hills. There is a spirit of energy
and vigor in mountains, and they impart it to all who approach their
presence. At that time I did not know how many dark superstitions
and gloomy legends are associated with those mountains in the minds
of the Indians, but I felt an eager desire to penetrate their hidden
recesses, to explore the awful chasms and precipices, the black
torrents, the silent forests, that I fancied were concealed there.
CHAPTER XII
ILL LUCK
A Canadian came from Fort Laramie, and brought a curious piece of
intelligence. A trapper, fresh from the mountains, had become
enamored of a Missouri damsel belonging to a family who with other
emigrants had been for some days encamped in the neighborhood of the
fort. If bravery be the most potent charm to win the favor of the
fair, then no wooer could be more irresistible than a Rocky Mountain
trapper.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 103 of 251
Words from 52601 to 53121
of 129303
