iples
of Blackstone's Commentaries. The day was a most auspicious one; and yet
Shaw and I felt certain misgivings, which in the sequel proved but too
well founded. We had just learned that though R. had taken it upon him
to adopt this course without consulting us, not a single man in
the party was acquainted with it; and the absurdity of our friend's
high-handed measure very soon became manifest. His plan was to strike
the trail of several companies of dragoons, who last summer had made an
expedition under Colonel Kearny to Fort Laramie, and by this means to
reach the grand trail of the Oregon emigrants up the Platte.

We rode for an hour or two when a familiar cluster of buildings appeared
on a little hill. "Hallo!" shouted the Kickapoo trader from over his
fence. "Where are you going?" A few rather emphatic exclamations might
have been heard among us, when we found that we had gone miles out of
our way, and were not advanced an inch toward the Rocky Mountains. So
we turned in the direction the trader indicated, and with the sun for
a guide, began to trace a "bee line" across the prairies. We struggled
through copses and lines of wood; we waded brooks and pools of water; we
traversed prairies as green as an emerald, expanding before us for mile
after mile; wider and more wild than the wastes Mazeppa rode over:

"Man nor brute,
Nor dint of hoof, nor print of foot,
Lay in the wild luxuriant soil;
No sign of travel; none of toil;
The very air was mute."

Riding in advance, we passed over one of these great plains; we looked
back and saw the line of scattered horsemen stretching for a mile or
more; and far in the rear against the horizon, the white wagons creeping
slowly along. "Here we are at last!" shouted the captain. And in truth
we had struck upon the traces of a large body of horse. We turned
joyfully and followed this new course, with tempers somewhat improved;
and toward sunset encamped on a high swell of the prairie, at the foot
of which a lazy stream soaked along through clumps of rank grass. It
was getting dark. We turned the horses loose to feed. "Drive down the
tent-pickets hard," said Henry Chatillon, "it is going to blow." We did
so, and secured the tent as well as we could; for the sky had changed
totally, and a fresh damp smell in the wind warned us that a stormy
night was likely to succeed the hot clear day. The prairie also wore
a new aspect, and its vast swells had grown bla