hward for three or four days
more, when, reaching Pawnee Fork, we travelled down it for
more than a week, arriving again on the Old Santa Fe Trail.
Following the Trail three days, we arrived at Walnut Creek,
then left the river again and went eastwardly to Cow Creek.
When we reached that point, we had become so completely
exhausted and worn out from subsisting on buffalo meat
alone, that it seemed as if there was nothing left for
us to do but lie down and die. Finally it was determined
to send five of the best-preserved men on ahead to
Independence, two hundred miles, for the purpose of
procuring assistance; the other fifteen to get along
as well as they could until succour reached them.

I was one of the five selected to go on in advance, and
I shall never forget the terrible suffering we endured.
We had no blankets, and it was getting late in the fall.
Some of us were entirely barefooted, and our feet so sore
that we left stains of blood at every step. Deafness, too,
seized upon us so intensely, occasioned by our weak
condition, that we coud not hear the report of a gun fired
at a distance of only a few feet.

At one place two of our men laid down their arms, declaring
they could carry them no farther, and would die if they
did not get water. We left them and went in search of some.
After following a dry branch several miles, we found
a muddy puddle from which we succeeded in getting half
a bucket full, and, although black and thick, it was life
for us and we guarded it with jealous eyes. We returned
to our comrades about daylight, and the water so refreshed
them they were able to resume the weary march. We travelled
on until we arrived at the Big Blue River, in Missouri,
on the bank of which we discovered a cabin about fifteen
miles from Independence. The occupants of the rude shanty
were women, seemingly very poor, but they freely offered us
a pot of pumpkin they were stewing. When they first saw us,
they were terribly frightened, because we looked more like
skeletons than living beings. They jumped on the bed while
we were greedily devouring