At length Raymond grew
impatient, and scrambling out of the ravine, he gained the level
prairie above.
"What does the weather look like?" asked I, from my seat under the
tree.
"It looks bad," he answered; "dark all around," and again he
descended and sat down by my side. Some ten minutes elapsed.
"Go up again," said I, "and take another look;" and he clambered up
the precipice. "Well, how is it?"
"Just the same, only I see one little bright spot over the top of the
mountain.
The rain by this time had begun to abate; and going down to the
bottom of the ravine, we loosened the animals, who were standing up
to their knees in water. Leading them up the rocky throat of the
ravine, we reached the plain above. "Am I," I thought to myself,
"the same man who a few months since, was seated, a quiet student of
BELLES-LETTRES, in a cushioned arm-chair by a sea-coal fire?"
All around us was obscurity; but the bright spot above the
mountaintops grew wider and ruddier, until at length the clouds drew
apart, and a flood of sunbeams poured down from heaven, streaming
along the precipices, and involving them in a thin blue haze, as soft
and lovely as that which wraps the Apennines on an evening in spring.
Rapidly the clouds were broken and scattered, like routed legions of
evil spirits. The plain lay basking in sunbeams around us; a rainbow
arched the desert from north to south, and far in front a line of
woods seemed inviting us to refreshment and repose. When we reached
them, they were glistening with prismatic dewdrops, and enlivened by
the song and flutterings of a hundred birds. Strange winged insects,
benumbed by the rain, were clinging to the leaves and the bark of the
trees.
Raymond kindled a fire with great difficulty. The animals turned
eagerly to feed on the soft rich grass, while I, wrapping myself in
my blanket, lay down and gazed on the evening landscape. The
mountains, whose stern features had lowered upon us with so gloomy
and awful a frown, now seemed lighted up with a serene, benignant
smile, and the green waving undulations of the plain were gladdened
with the rich sunshine. Wet, ill, and wearied as I was, my spirit
grew lighter at the view, and I drew from it an augury of good for my
future prospects.
When morning came, Raymond awoke, coughing violently, though I had
apparently received no injury. We mounted, crossed the little
stream, pushed through the trees, and began our journey over the
plain beyond. And now, as we rode slowly along, we looked anxiously
on every hand for traces of the Indians, not doubting that the
village had passed somewhere in that vicinity; but the scanty
shriveled grass was not more than three or four inches high, and the
ground was of such unyielding hardness that a host might have marched
over it and left scarcely a trace of its passage.
