At length evening came again. The meal of dried meat was eaten, with water from the rill that trickled through the bottom of the glen; then saddles were adjusted; girths were drawn, and as night wrapped its black mantle around the waste, we emerged upon the level prairie to begin our long march to the north.
It was quite dark; not a sound stirred over the wilderness. The Sioux led the advance; he had three horses to his larêt. I followed, leading two. The pace was a sharp trot, and the course lay with undeviating precision to the east of north.
At last the long monotony of the night was over.
Light, faint enough it is true, but still light, began to show itself along the line where the prairie and the sky touched each other in the east; then it grew into a broader band of pale yellow, and soon stray tints of rose began to streak it, and to push the first faint reflection still higher into the heavens.
How weird and distant it used to look, that first dawn over the virgin wilderness! Shadow-land, grim darkness going, glorious light approaching—approaching so stilly, with such solemn steps that seemed ever to hesitate as they trod the gloomy sands of the shore of the night! Then gradually growing bolder, they rolled back the waves of darkness, and drew from the abyss hill-top after hill-top, until all the wondrous beauty of the sun was flashed upon the silent land.
Little time had I to think of these things as now, in hot haste, the saddles were taken from the two old horses and placed upon the backs of two of the recent purchases.
Then away we went again, and the morning wore on to mid-day, and the evening came and found us still moving to the north-east.
When night again fell we stopped, unsaddled, and turned the weary horses out to rest.
We were one hundred miles from the camp of the Indians.