rairie, where the long dry grass of last summer was on fire.

CHAPTER III

FORT LEAVENWORTH

On the next morning we rode to Fort Leavenworth. Colonel, now General,
Kearny, to whom I had had the honor of an introduction when at St.
Louis, was just arrived, and received us at his headquarters with the
high-bred courtesy habitual to him. Fort Leavenworth is in fact no fort,
being without defensive works, except two block-houses. No rumors of
war had as yet disturbed its tranquillity. In the square grassy area,
surrounded by barracks and the quarters of the officers, the men were
passing and repassing, or lounging among the trees; although not many
weeks afterward it presented a different scene; for here the very
off-scourings of the frontier were congregated, to be marshaled for the
expedition against Santa Fe.

Passing through the garrison, we rode toward the Kickapoo village, five
or six miles beyond. The path, a rather dubious and uncertain one, led
us along the ridge of high bluffs that bordered the Missouri; and by
looking to the right or to the left, we could enjoy a strange contrast
of opposite scenery. On the left stretched the prairie, rising into
swells and undulations, thickly sprinkled with groves, or gracefully
expanding into wide grassy basins of miles in extent; while its
curvatures, swelling against the horizon, were often surmounted by lines
of sunny woods; a scene to which the freshness of the season and the
peculiar mellowness of the atmosphere gave additional softness. Below
us, on the right, was a tract of ragged and broken woods. We could look
down on the summits of the trees, some living and some dead; some erect,
others leaning at every angle, and others still piled in masses together
by the passage of a hurricane. Beyond their extreme verge, the turbid
waters of the Missouri were discernible through the boughs, rolling
powerfully along at the foot of the woody declivities of its farther
bank.

The path soon after led inland; and as we crossed an open meadow we saw
a cluster of buildings on a rising ground before us, with a crowd of
people surrounding them. They were the storehouse, cottage, and stables
of the Kickapoo trader's establishment. Just at that moment, as it
chanced, he was beset with half the Indians of the settlement. They had
tied their wretched, neglected little ponies by dozens along the fences
and outhouses, and were either lounging about the place, or crowding
into the