Having proceeded about seven hundred miles, they met Mr. Joseph Miller, on his way to the mouth of the Columbia. He had been considerably to the south and east, and had fallen in with the Black-arms, and the Arrapahoes, who wander about the sources of the Arkansa. By the latter of these he had been robbed, in consequence of which he was now reduced to starvation and nakedness.
Mr. Stewart and his companions had fifteen horses, but soon afterwards met with a band of the Crow Indians, near the Rocky Mountains, who behaved with the most unbounded insolence, and finally stole every horse belonging to the party.
They now found themselves on foot, with the Rocky Mountains, and a journey of two thousand miles before them; fifteen hundred of which was through a country wholly unknown, as their route lay considerably to the south of that of Lewis and Clarke.
Putting the best face upon their prospects, they pursued their journey towards the Rocky Mountains, travelling east-south-east, until they struck the "head waters of the great river Platte," which they followed to its mouth, having spent the winter upon it, six hundred miles from the Missouri.[104]
The confluence of the north fork and the Platte is, according to our estimate of distances, one hundred and forty-nine miles by our courses, from the Pawnee Loup village.
Some of the upper branches of the Wolf river head about thirty miles to the north of this point.
After fording the north fork, we crossed a narrow point of low prairie to the Platte, where, as it was {153} now near night, we resolved to encamp, and attempt the passage of the river on the following day.[105]
Our view of the opposite margin of the Platte, during this day's march, had been intercepted by an elevated swell of the surface, which extended along, parallel to the river, that we were now approaching. Immediately upon surmounting this undulation we saw before us, upon the broad expanse of the left margin of the river, immense herds of bisons, grazing in undisturbed possession, and obscuring, with the density of their numbers, the verdant plain; to the right and left, as far as the eye was permitted to rove, the crowd seemed hardly to diminish, and it would be no exaggeration to say, that at least ten thousand here burst on our sight in the instant. Small columns of dust were occasionally wafted by the wind from bulls that were pawing the earth, and rolling; the interest of action was also communicated to the scene, by the unwieldy playfulness of some individuals, that the eye would occasionally rest upon, their real or affected combats, or by the slow or rapid progress of others to and from their watering places. On the distant bluffs, individuals were constantly disappearing, whilst others were presenting themselves to our view, until, as the dusk of the evening increased, their massive forms, thus elevated above the line of other objects, were but dimly defined on the skies. We retired to our evening fare, highly gratified with the novel spectacle we had witnessed, and with the most sanguine expectations of the future.
In the morning we again sought the living picture, but upon all the plain which last evening was so teeming with noble animals, not one remained. We forded the Platte with less delay and difficulty than we had encountered in crossing the north fork.
It is about nine hundred yards wide, and very rapid, but so shoal that we found it unnecessary to dismount from our horses, or to unpack the mules. {154} We found the plains on the south side of the Platte more closely depastured than those we had before seen. The grass is fine and short, forming a dense and matted turf, as in the oldest pastures.