nd the other
collapsed in proportion, while the disconsolate horses stood shivering
close around, and the wind kept up a dismal whistling in the boughs of
three old half-dead trees above. Shaw, like a patriarch, sat on his
saddle in the entrance, with a pipe in his mouth, and his arms folded,
contemplating, with cool satisfaction, the piles of meat that we flung
on the ground before him. A dark and dreary night succeeded; but the sun
rose with a heat so sultry and languid that the captain excused himself
on that account from waylaying an old buffalo bull, who with stupid
gravity was walking over the prairie to drink at the river. So much for
the climate of the Platte!

We encamped that night upon the bank of the river. Among the emigrants
there was an overgrown boy, some eighteen years old, with a head as
round and about as large as a pumpkin, and fever-and-ague fits had dyed
his face of a corresponding color. He wore an old white hat, tied under
his chin with a handkerchief; his body was short and stout, but his legs
of disproportioned and appalling length. I observed him at sunset,
breasting the hill with gigantic strides, and standing against the sky
on the summit, like a colossal pair of tongs. In a moment after we heard
him screaming frantically behind the ridge, and nothing doubting that he
was in the clutches of Indians or grizzly bears, some of the party
caught up their rifles and ran to the rescue. His outcries, however,
proved but an ebullition of joyous excitement; he had chased two little
wolf pups to their burrow, and he was on his knees, grubbing away like a
dog at the mouth of the hole, to get at them.

Before morning he caused more serious disquiet in the camp. It was his
turn to hold the middle guard; but no sooner was he called up, than he
coolly arranged a pair of saddle-bags under a wagon, laid his head upon
them, closed his eyes, opened his mouth, and fell asleep. The guard on
our side of the camp, thinking it no part of his duty to look after the
cattle of the emigrants, contented himself with watching our own horses
and mules; the wolves, he said, were unusually noisy; but still no
mischief was anticipated until the sun rose, and not a hoof or horn was
in sight! The cattle were gone! While Tom was quietly slumbering, the
wolves had driven them away.

Then we reaped the fruits of R.'s precious plan of traveling in company
with emigrants. To leave them in their distress was not to be thought
of,