lter, to regain our strength and to
rest our horses. Thus deeply buried in the bosom of the earth, we were
safe from the devastating elements. On the second day we heard
tremendous claps of thunder; we knew that a storm was raging which would
quench the fire, but we cared little about what was going on above.

We had plenty to eat and to drink, our steeds were recovering fast, and,
in spite of the horrors we had just undergone, we were not a little
amused by the lamentations of the parson, who, recollecting the
destruction of his shirts, forgot his professional duty, and swore
against Texas and the Texans, against the prairies, the buffaloes, and
the fire: the last event had produced so deep an impression upon his
mind, that he preferred shivering all night by the banks of the torrent
to sleeping near our comfortable fire; and as to eating of the delicate
food before him, it was out of the question; he would suck it, but not
masticate nor swallow it; his stomach and his teeth refused to
accomplish their functions upon the abhorred meat; and he solemnly
declared that never again would he taste beef--cow or calf--- tame or
wild--even if he were starving.

One of the lawyers, too, was loud in his complaints, for although born
in the States, he had in his veins no few drops of Irish blood, and
could not forget the sacrifice Gabriel had made of the whisky. "Such
stuff!" he would exclaim, "the best that ever came into this land of
abomination, to be thrown in the face of dirty buffaloes: the devil take
them! Eh! Monsheer Owato Wanisha,--queer outlandish name,
by-the-bye,--please to pass me another slice of the varmint (meaning the
buffalo-calf). Bless my soul, if I did not think, at one time, it was
after the liquor the brutes were running!"

Upon the morning of the third day, we resumed our journey, following the
stream down for a few miles, over thousands of dead animals, which the
now foaming torrent could not wash away. We struck the winding path
which the "estampedados" had taken; and as it had been worked by the
millions of fugitives into a gentle ascent, we found ourselves long
before noon, once more upon the level of the prairie. What a spectacle
of gloom and death! As far as the eye could reach, the earth was naked
and blackened. Not a stem of grass, not a bush, had escaped the awful
conflagration; and thousands of half-burnt bodies of deer, buffaloes,
and mustangs covered the prairie in every direction.

The hor