We
Separated, Some Riding In One Direction And Some In Another Along Its
Course.
Still we found no traces of water, not even so much as a wet
spot in the sand.
The old cotton-wood trees that grew along the
bank, lamentably abused by lightning and tempest, were withering with
the drought, and on the dead limbs, at the summit of the tallest,
half a dozen crows were hoarsely cawing like birds of evil omen as
they were. We had no alternative but to keep on. There was no water
nearer than the South Fork of the Platte, about ten miles distant.
We moved forward, angry and silent, over a desert as flat as the
outspread ocean.
The sky had been obscured since the morning by thin mists and vapors,
but now vast piles of clouds were gathered together in the west.
They rose to a great height above the horizon, and looking up toward
them I distinguished one mass darker than the rest and of a peculiar
conical form. I happened to look again and still could see it as
before. At some moments it was dimly seen, at others its outline was
sharp and distinct; but while the clouds around it were shifting,
changing, and dissolving away, it still towered aloft in the midst of
them, fixed and immovable. It must, thought I, be the summit of a
mountain, and yet its heights staggered me. My conclusion was right,
however. It was Long's Peak, once believed to be one of the highest
of the Rocky Mountain chain, though more recent discoveries have
proved the contrary.
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