me distance, and making
no fire at their second encampment. Sometimes they would float all night
with the current; one keeping watch and steering while the rest slept.
in such case, they would haul their boat on shore, at noon of the
following day to dry; for notwithstanding every precaution, she was
gradually getting water-soaked and rotten.

There was something pleasingly solemn and mysterious in thus floating
down these wild rivers at night. The purity of the atmosphere in these
elevated regions gave additional splendor to the stars, and heightened
the magnificence of the firmament. The occasional rush and laving of
the waters; the vague sounds from the surrounding wilderness; the dreary
howl, or rather whine of wolves from the plains; the low grunting and
bellowing of the buffalo, and the shrill neighing of the elk, struck the
ear with an effect unknown in the daytime.

The two knowing hunters had scarcely recovered from one mortification
when they were fated to experience another. As the boat was gliding
swiftly round a low promontory, thinly covered with trees, one of them
gave the alarm of Indians. The boat was instantly shoved from shore and
every one caught up his rifle. "Where are they?" cried Wyeth.

"There--there! riding on horseback!" cried one of the hunters.

"Yes; with white scarfs on!" cried the other.

Wyeth looked in the direction they pointed, but descried nothing but
two bald eagles, perched on a low dry branch beyond the thickets, and
seeming, from the rapid motion of the boat, to be moving swiftly in an
opposite direction. The detection of this blunder in the two veterans,
who prided themselves on the sureness and quickness of their sight,
produced a hearty laugh at their expense, and put an end to their
vauntings.

The Yellowstone, above the confluence of the Bighorn, is a clear stream;
its waters were now gradually growing turbid, and assuming the yellow
clay color of the Missouri. The current was about four miles an hour,
with occasional rapids; some of them dangerous, but the voyagers passed
them all without accident. The banks of the river were in many places
precipitous with strata of bituminous coal. They now entered a region
abounding with buffalo--that ever-journeying animal, which moves in
countless droves from point to point of the vast wilderness; traversing
plains, pouring through the intricate defiles of mountains, swimming
rivers, ever on the move, guided on its boundless migr