s, moccasins, or any other clothing than
an old jacket and pantaloons; without intelligence and skill to guide
his course, or any knowledge of the productions of the prairie. All this
time he had subsisted on crickets and lizards, wild onions, and three
eggs which he found in the nest of a prairie dove. He had not seen a
human being. Utterly bewildered in the boundless, hopeless desert that
stretched around him, offering to his inexperienced eye no mark by which
to direct his course, he had walked on in despair till he could walk no
longer, and then crawled on his knees until the bone was laid bare. He
chose the night for his traveling, lying down by day to sleep in the
glaring sun, always dreaming, as he said, of the broth and corn cake he
used to eat under his old master's shed in Missouri. Every man in the
camp, both white and red, was astonished at his wonderful escape not
only from starvation but from the grizzly bears which abound in that
neighborhood, and the wolves which howled around him every night.

Reynal recognized him the moment the Indians brought him in. He had
run away from his master about a year before and joined the party of
M. Richard, who was then leaving the frontier for the mountains. He had
lived with Richard ever since, until in the end of May he with Reynal
and several other men went out in search of some stray horses, when he
got separated from the rest in a storm, and had never been heard of up
to this time. Knowing his inexperience and helplessness, no one dreamed
that he could still be living. The Indians had found him lying exhausted
on the ground.

As he sat there with the Indians gazing silently on him, his haggard
face and glazed eye were disgusting to look upon. Delorier made him
a bowl of gruel, but he suffered it to remain untasted before him. At
length he languidly raised the spoon to his lips; again he did so, and
again; and then his appetite seemed suddenly inflamed into madness, for
he seized the bowl, swallowed all its contents in a few seconds, and
eagerly demanded meat. This we refused, telling him to wait until
morning, but he begged so eagerly that we gave him a small piece, which
he devoured, tearing it like a dog. He said he must have more. We told
him that his life was in danger if he ate so immoderately at first.
He assented, and said he knew he was a fool to do so, but he must
have meat. This we absolutely refused, to the great indignation of the
senseless squaws, who