The Blinds Were Closed, And The
Heat And Glare Of The Sun Excluded; The Room Was As Cool As A Cavern.
It was neatly carpeted too and furnished in a manner that we hardly
expected on the frontier.
The sofas, chairs, tables, and a well-
filled bookcase would not have disgraced an Eastern city; though
there were one or two little tokens that indicated the rather
questionable civilization of the region. A pistol, loaded and
capped, lay on the mantelpiece; and through the glass of the
bookcase, peeping above the works of John Milton glittered the handle
of a very mischievous-looking knife.
Our host went out, and returned with iced water, glasses, and a
bottle of excellent claret; a refreshment most welcome in the extreme
heat of the day; and soon after appeared a merry, laughing woman, who
must have been, a year of two before, a very rich and luxuriant
specimen of Creole beauty. She came to say that lunch was ready in
the next room. Our hostess evidently lived on the sunny side of
life, and troubled herself with none of its cares. She sat down and
entertained us while we were at table with anecdotes of fishing
parties, frolics, and the officers at the fort. Taking leave at
length of the hospitable trader and his friend, we rode back to the
garrison.
Shaw passed on to the camp, while I remained to call upon Colonel
Kearny. I found him still at table. There sat our friend the
captain, in the same remarkable habiliments in which we saw him at
Westport; the black pipe, however, being for the present laid aside.
He dangled his little cap in his hand and talked of steeple-chases,
touching occasionally upon his anticipated exploits in buffalo-
hunting. There, too, was R., somewhat more elegantly attired. For
the last time we tasted the luxuries of civilization, and drank
adieus to it in wine good enough to make us almost regret the leave-
taking. Then, mounting, we rode together to the camp, where
everything was in readiness for departure on the morrow.
CHAPTER IV
"JUMPING OFF"
The reader need not be told that John Bull never leaves home without
encumbering himself with the greatest possible load of luggage. Our
companions were no exception to the rule. They had a wagon drawn by
six mules and crammed with provisions for six months, besides
ammunition enough for a regiment; spare rifles and fowling-pieces,
ropes and harness; personal baggage, and a miscellaneous assortment
of articles, which produced infinite embarrassment on the journey.
They had also decorated their persons with telescopes and portable
compasses, and carried English double-barreled rifles of sixteen to
the pound caliber, slung to their saddles in dragoon fashion.
By sunrise on the 23d of May we had breakfasted; the tents were
leveled, the animals saddled and harnessed, and all was prepared.
"Avance donc! get up!" cried Delorier from his seat in front of the
cart. Wright, our friend's muleteer, after some swearing and
lashing, got his insubordinate train in motion, and then the whole
party filed from the ground. Thus we bade a long adieu to bed and
board, and the principles of Blackstone's Commentaries. The day was
a most auspicious one; and yet Shaw and I felt certain misgivings,
which in the sequel proved but too well founded. We had just learned
that though R. had taken it upon him to adopt this course without
consulting us, not a single man in the party was acquainted with it;
and the absurdity of our friend's high-handed measure very soon
became manifest. His plan was to strike the trail of several
companies of dragoons, who last summer had made an expedition under
Colonel Kearny to Fort Laramie, and by this means to reach the grand
trail of the Oregon emigrants up the Platte.
We rode for an hour or two when a familiar cluster of buildings
appeared on a little hill. "Hallo!" shouted the Kickapoo trader from
over his fence. "Where are you going?" A few rather emphatic
exclamations might have been heard among us, when we found that we
had gone miles out of our way, and were not advanced an inch toward
the Rocky Mountains. So we turned in the direction the trader
indicated, and with the sun for a guide, began to trace a "bee line"
across the prairies. We struggled through copses and lines of wood;
we waded brooks and pools of water; we traversed prairies as green as
an emerald, expanding before us for mile after mile; wider and more
wild than the wastes Mazeppa rode over:
"Man nor brute,
Nor dint of hoof, nor print of foot,
Lay in the wild luxuriant soil;
No sign of travel; none of toil;
The very air was mute."
Riding in advance, we passed over one of these great plains; we
looked back and saw the line of scattered horsemen stretching for a
mile or more; and far in the rear against the horizon, the white
wagons creeping slowly along. "Here we are at last!" shouted the
captain. And in truth we had struck upon the traces of a large body
of horse. We turned joyfully and followed this new course, with
tempers somewhat improved; and toward sunset encamped on a high swell
of the prairie, at the foot of which a lazy stream soaked along
through clumps of rank grass. It was getting dark. We turned the
horses loose to feed. "Drive down the tent-pickets hard," said Henry
Chatillon, "it is going to blow." We did so, and secured the tent as
well as we could; for the sky had changed totally, and a fresh damp
smell in the wind warned us that a stormy night was likely to succeed
the hot clear day. The prairie also wore a new aspect, and its vast
swells had grown black and somber under the shadow of the clouds.
The thunder soon began to growl at a distance. Picketing and
hobbling the horses among the rich grass at the foot of the slope,
where we encamped, we gained a shelter just as the rain began to
fall; and sat at the opening of the tent, watching the proceedings of
the captain.
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