Hibbets had climbed to his post, the top of the bluff, where he could command a view of the surrounding prairie.
Before night had set in, I had noticed a very beautiful spot on the bank of the arroyo, about two hundred yards from where my comrades lay. A sudden fancy came into my head to sleep there; and taking up my rifle, robe, and blanket, at the same time calling to “Sleepy-head” to awake me in case of alarm, I proceeded thither.
The ground, shelving gradually down to the arroyo, was covered with soft buffalo grass, thick and dry—as good a bed as was ever pressed by sleepy mortal. On this I spread my robe, and, folding my blanket around me, lay down, cigar in mouth, to smoke myself asleep.
It was a lovely moonlight, so clear that I could easily distinguish the colours of the prairie flowers—the silver euphorbias, the golden sunflowers, and the scarlet malvas, that fringed the banks of the arroyo at my feet. There was an enchanting stillness in the air, broken only by an occasional whine from the prairie wolf, the distant snoring of my companions, and the “crop, crop” of our horses shortening the crisp grass.
I lay a good while awake, until my cigar burnt up to my lips (we smoke them close on the prairies); then, spitting out the stump, I turned over on my side, and was soon in the land of dreams.
I could not have been asleep many minutes when I felt sensible of a strange noise, like distant thunder, or the roaring of a waterfall. The ground seemed to tremble beneath me.
“We are going to have a dash of a thunder-shower,” thought I, still half-dreaming, half-sensible to impressions from without; and I drew the folds of my blanket closer around me, and again slept.
I was awakened by a noise like thunder—indeed, like the trampling of a thousand hoofs, and the lowing of a thousand oxen! The earth echoed and trembled. I could hear the shouts of my comrades; the voices of Saint Vrain and Gode, the latter calling out—
“Sacr–r–ré! monsieur; prenez garde des buffles!”
I saw that they had drawn the horses, and were hurrying them under the bluff.