"It is too late, my days are spent, he said; then rousing himself, he exclaimed, in a voice that still rings in my ears: 'Son of a degenerate race, go over this whole continent and there trace the history of my people. Our monuments are there, and on them are chiseled our deeds, and though we moulder in the dust, they can never die; they are imperishable. Go where the summer never ends, where the trees blossom, still laden with fruit, and there we once were mighty as these forests, and numerous as the drops in this lake; there read of our glory—but not of our shame—that was never chiseled in our monumental pillars; it is here, (placing his hand on his heart) and with me must die. Go, (said he, waving with his hand towards the path that ascended the table) go, and leave the last of a mighty race, to die alone. It is not fitting you should be here: Go? I am called.'"
I obeyed him reluctantly, but I never saw him again.
Chapter Fourth.
Their journey continued. Finding a Prairie. Encamping for the Night. Singular incident. A Mirage on the Prairie. Alarm in the Camp. The Prairie discovered to be on fire. Flight to the Sand Hills. Their final escape. Search for water. Finding a stream. Encampment.
The next day the camp was struck and packed; the oxen, rested and invigorated by roving over and cropping the rich grasses that grew in luxuriance along the banks of the river by which they had encamped, moved with a brisk step along their shady track, while the voices of the drivers sounded musically, reverberating through the stillness of the forest. Towards noon they came to one of those singularly interesting geological features of the west, a Prairie. This was something entirely new to the younger children, who had never been far from the place where they were born, and it very naturally surprised them to see such a boundless extent of territory, without a house, barn, or fence of any kind—nothing but a waving mass of coarse rank grass.
"Oh! father," cried little Benny, as the vast prairie burst on his sight, "see what a great big farm somebody has got! But where does he live? I don't see any house."
"And the fences, apple, peach, and pear trees?" said Anne.
"It is not a farm; it's a big pasture kept on purpose to feed buffaloes and deer in," said Martin.
"You are all wrong," retorted Lewis, "for though buffaloes and deer do feed on the prairie, it is not kept for them alone; it has always been so—trees will not grow on it."