The Balked Missourians Were Excessively Mortified, Especially When Henry Told Them If They Had Kept Quiet He Would Have Killed Meat Enough In Ten Minutes To Feed Their Whole Party.

Our friends, who were at no great distance, hearing such a formidable fusillade, thought the Indians had fired the volley for our benefit.

Shaw came galloping on to reconnoiter and learn if we were yet in the land of the living.

At Cow Creek we found the very welcome novelty of ripe grapes and plums, which grew there in abundance. At the Little Arkansas, not much farther on, we saw the last buffalo, a miserable old bull, roaming over the prairie alone and melancholy.

From this time forward the character of the country was changing every day. We had left behind us the great arid deserts, meagerly covered by the tufted buffalo grass, with its pale green hue, and its short shriveled blades. The plains before us were carpeted with rich and verdant herbage sprinkled with flowers. In place of buffalo we found plenty of prairie hens, and we bagged them by dozens without leaving the trail. In three or four days we saw before us the broad woods and the emerald meadows of Council Grove, a scene of striking luxuriance and beauty. It seemed like a new sensation as we rode beneath the resounding archs of these noble woods. The trees were ash, oak, elm, maple, and hickory, their mighty limbs deeply overshadowing the path, while enormous grape vines were entwined among them, purple with fruit.

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