I remember well the spot where I paused to settle my purpose. It was a high swell, which commanded a view over miles of prairie, and even overlooked the top of the lofty trees in the thicket. It was strewed with bones. For several hundred yards, the whole hill was literally covered with them. It looked like some deserted charnel; and I recollect even in the midst of my perplexity, taking up one and examining it—wondering whether it belonged to man or beast. The place might have been the scene of a battle; for the bones were so small that they could scarcely be those of animals. There were no skulls, either of man or brutes, to solve the mystery; and even the bones were covered with a greenish mould, from many years’ exposure.
After some consideration, I resolved to retrace my steps, and accordingly turned down the hill, and once more proceeded on my journey. I now was growing hungry, and for once felt the miseries of a keen appetite. In the midst of these cogitations, I caught sight of the head of a racoon, who was reconnoitering me from behind the stump of a tree; I shot him, and skinned him; and kindling a fire, cooked part of him on the spot. The cinders from my fire, caught in a small patch of dry grass, which had escaped the general burning of the prairie; and in a moment it was in a blaze—filling the air with a cloud of black smoke. When I finished my meal, I slung the residue of my prize upon my back, and struck out into the prairie. I had scarcely done so before I caught sight of an Indian, standing upon the top of a ridge at some distance. In a moment after he perceived me, and waved his blanket over his head, to attract my attention. I raised the Otoe hunting-whoop, and his shout, faint, from the distance, answered me. I then started for the hill, and the Indian, seating himself, waited till I came up. He was one of the Otoes who accompanied us. His Indian name I do not recollect; but when translated it signified, “the man that drags his heels.” It was given him on account of a shuffling gait, which it was said that he possessed, but which I could never discover.
We started together, and about a mile beyond the arm of timber where I had turned back in the morning, we came upon the trail of the party.
Night closed in upon us, long before we reached their camping ground. I was nearly exhausted; the light racoon, which I carried upon my back, seemed to grow almost as heavy as a deer. My thirst grew intense; I stopped to drink at every pool; and kept constantly breaking off the tops of the rosin weed, and chewing its pitchy sap to keep my mouth moist. Still the Indian kept on with unwearied steps, sometimes pausing to listen as a cry sounded through the night air, or turning to point out the light of a prairie on fire at a distance. He did not slacken his pace, until with a deep ugh! he pointed out to me the night-fires of our party, glimmering in a thick grove, on the borders of a brawling stream.
A loud shout, followed by a genuine Indian yell, burst from the lips of the doctor, when he first caught sight of me. This was followed by a hearty shake of the hand, and warm congratulations from the commissioner, and the whole party.
I was afterwards informed, that the Indian who discovered me, had crossed my track on the day previous; and, upon being told that I had not made my appearance, he had been induced by the promise of a blanket to set out in search of me.
I had not been long seated before our fire, when the Wild Horse, dressed in a pair of white corduroy pantaloons, with the rest of his body naked, came stalking up to shake hands with me. His object evidently was to display this new article of dress; which had been presented to him by the doctor. Although highly delighted, he walked in them, as if in fetters; for though the doctor had a rotundity of abdomen, which completely out-measured that of the Indian, yet the other far exceeded him in the size and length of his lower extremities; and the garment sat so tight to his legs, that at a little distance he had the appearance of having been white-washed. He kept about us during the whole evening. I imagine, however, that in this short space of time he grew completely tired of his new garb, for the next morning, I saw his son scampering through the bushes, dressed in the same pair of breeches—though they were as much too large for him, as they were too small for his father. He, too, soon wearied of them; and after having once or twice tripped up his own heels in wearing them, he abandoned them to the wife of the Wild Horse, who, I believe, from that period “wore the breeches.”
CHAPTER XVII.
The False Alarm.