nor insect was to be heard. Crockett began to feel very uneasy.
The fact that he was lost himself did not trouble him much, but he felt
anxious for his simple-minded, good-natured friend, the juggler, who
was left entirely alone and quite unable to take care of himself under
such circumstances.

As he rode along, much disturbed by these unpleasant reflections,
another novelty, characteristic of the Great West, arrested his
attention and elicited his admiration. He was just emerging from a very
lovely grove, carpeted with grass, which grew thick and green beneath
the leafy canopy which overarched it. There was not a particle of
underbrush to obstruct one's movement through this natural park. Just
beyond the grove there was another expanse of treeless prairie, so
rich, so beautiful, so brilliant with flowers, that even Colonel
Crockett, all unaccustomed as he was to the devotional mood, reined in
his horse, and gazing entranced upon the landscape, exclaimed:

"O God, what a world of beauty hast thou made for man! And yet how
poorly does he requite thee for it! He does not even repay thee with
gratitude."

The attractiveness of the scene was enhanced by a drove of more than a
hundred wild horses, really beautiful animals, quietly pasturing. It
seemed impossible but that the hand of man must have been employed in
embellishing this fair creation. It was all God's work. "When I looked
around and fully realized it all," writes Crockett, "I thought of the
clergyman who had preached to me in the wilds of Arkansas."

Colonel Crockett rode out upon the prairie. The horses no sooner espied
him than, excited, but not alarmed, the whole drove, with neighings,
and tails uplifted like banners, commenced coursing around him in an
extended circle, which gradually became smaller and smaller, until they
came in close contact; and the Colonel, not a little alarmed, found
himself completely surrounded, and apparently the prisoner of these
powerful steeds.

The little mustang upon which the Colonel was mounted seemed very happy
in its new companionship. It turned its head to one side, and then to
the other, and pranced and neighed, playfully biting at the mane of one
horse, rubbing his nose against that of another, and in joyous gambols
kicking up its heels. The Colonel was anxious to get out of the mess.
But his little mustang was not at all disposed to move in that
direction; neither did the other horses seem disposed to acquiesce in