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So exhausted and dispirited were they, that they began to think it would be better to remain and run the risk of being killed by the Indians, than to drag on thus painfully, with the probability of perishing by the way. Their miserable horse fared no better than themselves, having for the first day or two no other fodder than the ends of willow twigs, and the bark of the cotton-wood tree.
A large cotton-wood tree stood on the waste ground on one side of the road. The long flakes of Spanish moss hanging from its branches nearly touched the ground. It offered the readiest place of concealment, and we had just time to spur our horses behind its giant trunk, when the horsemen came abreast of the tree. Dark as it was, we could see them in passing.
For some few seconds, with one accord the party stared about them at their surroundings. The frozen landscape at this point presented a singularly lonely, desolate aspect. Flat, and for the greater part absolutely bare of brush; save where from a small coulee some half mile to the left of the trail the tops of a cotton-wood clump were visible.
Mad River, though deserving its name from the impetuosity of its current, was free from rapids and cascades, and flowed on in a single channel between gravel banks, often fringed with cotton-wood and dwarf willows in abundance. These gave sustenance to immense quantities of beaver, so that the voyagers found no difficulty in procuring food.
Directing ourselves along this, in ten minutes after we arrived opposite the house which by the electric blaze we could distinguish shining among the tall cotton-wood trees that grew around it. At this point we again made a stop to reconnoitre the ground, and consider how we should proceed. A wide field stretched from the fence almost to the walls.
In this fashion we progressed for a mile or more, through a tract of what is termed "bottom-timber" a forest of those gigantic water-loving trees the sycamore and cotton-wood. Their tall grey trunks rose along the path, standing thickly on each side, and sometimes in regular rows, like the columns of a grand temple.
There was another species of tiny insect, however, which seemed to drop from the little cotton-wood trees which grew at the edge of the acequia, and myriads of them descended and crawled all over us, so we had to have our beds moved still farther out on to the open space of the parade ground.
The men sat around them, cooking, eating, smoking, talking loudly, and laughing at stories that illustrated their own wild habits. The red light fell upon fierce, dark faces, now fiercer and more swarthy under the glare of the burning cotton-wood. By its light the savage expression was strengthened on every countenance. Beards looked darker, and teeth gleamed whiter through them.
The Indians, as they arrived at their slaughtered companion, stopped to howl over him. Colter made the most of this precious delay, gained the skirt of cotton-wood bordering the river, dashed through it, and plunged into the stream.
Cautiously he climbed a thick cotton-wood tree, whose foliage completely screened him from observation, and there awaited the nearer approach of Maxwell and his confederate. "Are you sure this is the island?" said Maxwell, when they had come within hearing of Hatchie. "This must be the one," replied Vernon. "We shall soon see whether it is inhabited or not."
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