ion. She broke through the throng, and rushing up, threw her
arms around him and wept aloud. He kept up the spirit and demeanor of a
warrior to the last, but expired shortly after he had reached his home.

The village was now a scene of the utmost festivity and triumph. The
banners, and trophies, and scalps, and painted shields were elevated
on poles near the lodges. There were warfeasts, and scalp-dances, with
warlike songs and savage music; all the inhabitants were arrayed in
their festal dresses; while the old heralds went round from lodge to
lodge, promulgating with loud voices the events of the battle and the
exploits of the various warriors.

Such was the boisterous revelry of the village; but sounds of another
kind were heard on the surrounding hills; piteous wailings of the women,
who had retired thither to mourn in darkness and solitude for those who
had fallen in battle. There the poor mother of the youthful warrior who
had returned home in triumph but to die, gave full vent to the anguish
of a mother's heart. How much does this custom among the Indian woman of
repairing to the hilltops in the night, and pouring forth their wailings
for the dead, call to mind the beautiful and affecting passage of
Scripture, "In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping,
and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be
comforted, because they are not."

CHAPTER XXII.

Wilderness of the Far West.--Great American Desert--Parched
Seasons.--Black Hills.--Rocky Mountains.--Wandering and
Predatory Hordes.--Speculations on What May Be the Future
Population.--Apprehended Dangers.-A Plot to Desert.--Rose the
Interpreter.--His Sinister Character--Departure From the
Arickara Village.

WHILE Mr. Hunt was diligently preparing for his arduous journey, some
of his men began to lose heart at the perilous prospect before them; but
before we accuse them of want of spirit, it is proper to consider the
nature of the wilderness into which they were about to adventure. It was
a region almost as vast and trackless as the ocean, and, at the time of
which we treat, but little known, excepting through the vague accounts
of Indian hunters. A part of their route would lay across an immense
tract, stretching north and south for hundreds of miles along the foot
of the Rocky Mountains, and drained by the tributary streams of the
Missouri and the Mississippi. This region, which resemb