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I honour the names which the trappers have given to the features of that far land; many of which, like the Indian nomenclature, are the expressions of nature itself; and not a few of them have been baptised by the blood of these brave pioneers. We have said that our adventurers now travelled upon a "rolling prairie." The surface exhibited vast ridges with hollows between.
All appeared clear, however, as far as my eye could reach. I was about to descend, when, looking to the south-west, I caught sight of a number of objects moving across the prairie. I pointed them out to Jup. "Injins!" he exclaimed. "Dey comin' dis way; better git off, or maybe dey take our scalps."
The light prairie soil, when thoroughly saturated, is capable of very great volatility and yet of stick-to-it-iveness. While the team and wagon, buried deeply in the mud, found the soil as yielding as quicksand, the passengers, on alighting, were no more fortunate. To make the chair and wade ashore with its precious burden, at such a time, involved a very nice adjustment of balances.
For important observations on supposed changes of climate in our Western prairie region, from cultivation of the soil and the introduction of domestic cattle, see Bryant's valuable Forest Trees, 1871, chapter v., and Hayden, Preliminary Report on Survey of Wyoming, p. 455.
The boy in the third wagon was suffering from exhaustion. The days and days of walking over the rolling prairie, under a brassy sun, the hard food of the train, and the short hours of rest, had put too severe a trial upon his delicate frame.
He must have perished very shortly after having lost his way, for the Prairie Ronde was too near the settlement to have prevented his bearing the calls and sounding horns of those in search of him, had he been living. Mr. Kinzie's enterprising and adventurous disposition led him, as he grew older, to live much on the frontier.
Almost unconsciously she put on the little table beside the bed a bunch of everlasting prairie flowers, and shaded the light to the point of quiet and comfort. Then she went outside again. The travellers now were not far away. She recognised the upright rider. It was Pretty Pierre. The other she could not tell. She called to her father. She had a fear which she did not care to face alone.
Far off on the prairie we could discern dimly a dark mass of mounted men, and we could plainly hear their triumphant shouts and laughter, as they disappeared in the distance! We never saw either them or our horses again.
You might be able to do more for us here than if shut up with us by a common danger." And so, with many a last farewell by the fond mother, Tom saw them start for their new home. Between the settlement in which the missionary lived and the one next north-east was a wide prairie, succeeded by a stretch of primitive forests, through which, down its abysmal, rocky bed, ran a foaming river.
If only I had a whip!" he panted, as the horse began to move around on a pivot. "Now, why can't you act nice, when I'm in such dire need of your services? If you don't stop Whoa! whoa!" For the horse had suddenly stopped pivoting and started off like a streak, not up or down the trail, but across a stretch of prairie grass.
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