I Had No Strength To Spare, Having At That
Moment Scarcely Enough To Keep My Seat On Horseback.
Then, for the
first time, it pressed upon me as a strong probability that I might
never leave those deserts.
"Well," thought I to myself, "a prairie
makes quick and sharp work. Better to die here, in the saddle to the
last, than to stifle in the hot air of a sick chamber, and a thousand
times better than to drag out life, as many have done, in the
helpless inaction of lingering disease." So, drawing the buffalo
robe on which I sat over my head, I waited till the storm should
come. It broke at last with a sudden burst of fury, and passing away
as rapidly as it came, left the sky clear again. My reflections
served me no other purpose than to look back upon as a piece of
curious experience; for the rain did not produce the ill effects that
I had expected. We encamped within an hour. Having no change of
clothes, I contrived to borrow a curious kind of substitute from
Reynal: and this done, I went home, that is, to the Big Crow's lodge
to make the entire transfer that was necessary. Half a dozen squaws
were in the lodge, and one of them taking my arm held it against her
own, while a general laugh and scream of admiration were raised at
the contrast in the color of the skin.
Our encampment that afternoon was not far distant from a spur of the
Black Hills, whose ridges, bristling with fir trees, rose from the
plains a mile or two on our right.
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