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The journey homeward was not nearly so merry as that of the outward trip. But new cabins had been built along their route, and the lads found much amusement in hunting up their former camping-places as they drove along the military road to Fort Leavenworth.
There were nine Snells, all relatives, in the patriot ranks; so far as I can remember, there were five Bellingers, five Seebers, five Wagners, and five Wollovers and it may well be five of more than one other family. The men of the different settlements formed groups by themselves at the first, and arranged their own separate camping-places for the night.
In marching with large force, unless there is a guide who knows the country, a small party should always be sent in advance to search for good camping-places, and these parties should be dispatched early enough to return and meet the main command in the event of not finding a camping-place within the limits of the day's march.
The weather continued fine; the days were long; islets for camping-places were numerous, and in process of time the party reached the mouth of the Whale otherwise Greygoose River, which they began to ascend. "Oh!" exclaimed Adolay, with glistening eyes, as she looked from bank to bank; "I know it so well almost every bush and tree." "And you love it?" said Nootka.
He used their own science of reading trails to track them to their camping-places; and their own wiles to steal upon them while they rested. He improved on their methods by making his raids during the darkness when their superstitions made them afraid to go abroad. One midnight he was deploying a company of Mexicans about the mesquite-thicket which sheltered a band of warriors.
The emerald edges of these silent tarns are starred with dandelions which have strayed here, one scarce knows how, from their foreign home; the buck-bean perchance grows in the water, or the Rhodora fixes here one of its shy camping-places, or there are whole skies of lupine on the sloping banks; the catbird builds its nest beside us, the yellow-bird above, the wood-thrush sings late and the whippoorwill later, and sometimes the scarlet tanager and his golden-haired bride send a gleam of the tropics through these leafy aisles.
For post-offices, they used the bleached buffalo-skulls found on the prairie, which, after the letters were placed inside, they suspended from the limbs of trees along the route. For guide-posts and to indicate their camping-places, they painted on the bald fronts of other buffalo-skulls the date and number of miles they had made.
He passed before you were up, and I went out to speak to him. He asked me to make his farewells to both of you, and particularly to tell you that The Bear sent you a growl, and he hopes you will find more amiable Rhodesians at your other camping-places." But Diana was in no mood for light messages; rather unaccountably, she received it with impatience. "O, he is simply odious!" she exclaimed.
I agree, if the death was speedy; but oh! it is a long and weary one, and for the moment I cannot face it." Again, writing from Kalaka at the beginning of May 1879, he says: "All the road from here to Shaka is marked by the camping-places of the slave-dealers, and there are numerous skulls by the side of the road. What thousands have passed along here!
Our road lay through most abominable country stony, precipitous, and in places covered with dense vegetation. The traces of blacks were abundant, and we could travel but a short distance without falling in with some of the numerous camping-places.
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