is arm, or it may be on the activity of his legs, it is
more particularly inconvenient. Medical assistance of course there was
none; neither had I the means of pursuing a system of diet; and sleeping
on a damp ground, with an occasional drenching from a shower, would
hardly be recommended as beneficial. I sometimes suffered the
extremity of languor and exhaustion, and though at the time I felt
no apprehensions of the final result, I have since learned that my
situation was a critical one.

Besides other formidable inconveniences I owe it in a great measure to
the remote effects of that unlucky disorder that from deficient
eyesight I am compelled to employ the pen of another in taking down
this narrative from my lips; and I have learned very effectually that a
violent attack of dysentery on the prairie is a thing too serious for
a joke. I tried repose and a very sparing diet. For a long time, with
exemplary patience, I lounged about the camp, or at the utmost staggered
over to the Indian village, and walked faint and dizzy among the lodges.
It would not do, and I bethought me of starvation. During five days I
sustained life on one small biscuit a day. At the end of that time I was
weaker than before, but the disorder seemed shaken in its stronghold and
very gradually I began to resume a less rigid diet. No sooner had I done
so than the same detested symptoms revisited me; my old enemy resumed
his pertinacious assaults, yet not with his former violence or
constancy, and though before I regained any fair portion of my ordinary
strength weeks had elapsed, and months passed before the disorder left
me, yet thanks to old habits of activity, and a merciful Providence, I
was able to sustain myself against it.

I used to lie languid and dreamy before our tent and muse on the past
and the future, and when most overcome with lassitude, my eyes turned
always toward the distant Black Hills. There is a spirit of energy
and vigor in mountains, and they impart it to all who approach their
presence. At that time I did not know how many dark superstitions and
gloomy legends are associated with those mountains in the minds of the
Indians, but I felt an eager desire to penetrate their hidden recesses,
to explore the awful chasms and precipices, the black torrents, the
silent forests, that I fancied were concealed there.

CHAPTER XII

ILL LUCK

A Canadian came from Fort Laramie, and brought a curious piece of
intelligence. A tra