After a march of twenty-six miles, however, he arrived at the summit
of a hill, the prospect of which induced him to alter his intention. He
beheld, in every direction south of east, a vast plain, bounded only
by the horizon, through which wandered the stream in question, in a
south-south-east direction. It could not, therefore, be a branch of the
Missouri. He now gave up all idea of taking the stream for his guide,
and shaped his course towards a range of mountains in the east, about
sixty miles distant, near which he hoped to find another stream.

The weather was now so severe, and the hardships of travelling so great,
that he resolved to halt for the winter, at the first eligible place.
That night they had to encamp on the open prairie, near a scanty pool
of water, and without any wood to make a fire. The northeast wind blew
keenly across the naked waste, and they were fain to decamp from their
inhospitable bivouac before the dawn.

For two days they kept on in an eastward direction, against wintry
blasts and occasional snow storms. They suffered, also, from scarcity
of water, having occasionally to use melted snow; this, with the want of
pasturage, reduced their old pack-horse sadly. They saw many tracks of
buffalo, and some few bulls, which, however, got the wind of them, and
scampered off.

On the 26th of October, they steered east-northeast, for a wooded ravine
in a mountain, at a small distance from the base of which, to their
great joy, they discovered an abundant stream, running between willowed
banks. Here they halted for the night, and Ben Jones having luckily
trapped a beaver, and killed two buffalo bulls, they remained all the
next day encamped, feasting and reposing, and allowing their jaded horse
to rest from his labors.

The little stream on which they were encamped, was one of the head
waters of the Platte River, which flows into the Missouri; it was,
in fact, the northern fork, or branch of that river, though this the
travellers did not discover until long afterwards. Pursuing the course
of this stream for about twenty miles, they came to where it forced
a passage through a range of high hills, covered with cedars, into an
extensive low country, affording excellent pasture to numerous herds of
buffalo. Here they killed three cows, which were the first they had been
able to get, having hitherto had to content themselves with bull beef,
which at this season of the year is very poor. The hump meat aff