Before us the valley wound between partly wooded low hills, behind which the higher base now rose. For several days we marched along this valley, till on one afternoon we looked down from a hill on the blue crystalline waters of the southern Platte, which coming down from the Medicine hills, rustled through the valley at our feet. The river was large even here, and shot with the speed that characterizes the streams in this country, and with many windings between its wood-clad banks. Before us, where the river described a sharp curve, the banks were stony on both sides, and seemed from time immemorial to have been used by the inhabitants of these countries as a ford. At this moment, when probably for the first time the eyes of white men rested on this ford, a countless herd of buffaloes was occupied in crossing. They were coming southward from the mountains, and pressed shoulder to shoulder in dense masses to water in the river, while others came down the hills in a black line. The roars of these thirsty wanderers filled the air and rang through the hills in a thousand echoes. They dashed by hundreds impetuously from the high bank into the deep, rapid stream, on either side of the ford, and drifted with it into the dark overarching wood. We stopped for a long time gazing down at this scene and awaiting the end of the herd, whose head had disappeared some time previously in the valley on our left, while dense masses still continued to pour down without a check from the hills to the water. At length, at the end of an hour, only a few laggards came, after at least five thousand buffaloes had crossed the river, and yet the number of these animals is said to be quite insignificant compared with what it was twenty years ago. Who knows whether fifty years hence they will exist anywhere but in natural history? We were obliged to let the wanderers pass, as we also wanted to cross the river, though in the opposite direction, and we should have run a risk of the whole herd marching over us, had we got in their way. We now rode down into the river; but, although so great a number of huge animals had passed through it, the water was as clear and bright as if a stone had never been stirred on its bottom. We watered our cattle, and followed the path by which the buffaloes had found their way to this ford, on the supposition that they had rendered it quite passable, and that they had come from the southern prairies to which we were bound.
BUFFALOES CROSSING A RIVER. [[p. 333.]
We had scaled the first hill, when we saw about two miles off a few buffaloes trotting towards us, which had probably lagged behind, and now wanted to catch up the herd. We rode about thirty yards off the path, to a spot where we were covered by rocks and commanded the sloping path down to the water. Ere long we heard the heavy trot of the approaching animals on the stony ground, and presently several cows, and behind them a fat old bull came past us. We all fired together, and the old bull rolled over and over down the slope, and lay dead at the bottom. We took as usual its tongue, marrowbones, and loins, and left the rest to those that came after us.
We could not have found a finer road through these hills: broad and trodden smooth, it wound along the crags, so that we were often able to advance at a quick amble. It frequently ran over dizzy precipices, whence we surveyed the pleasant valleys, whose dark shadow seemed to invite us, while the hot sun and its reflection from the bare rocks over which we were marching, was hardly rendered endurable by the fresh breeze blowing up here. We crossed a number of small streams, which came down from the western hills, and all flowed to the Platte, until at the end of a week we again reached the latter river, at the point where a large affluent, coming from the Bighorn, joined it. We appeared to be here on the last slopes of the enormous mountains, over which the snowpeak was visible in all its splendour as a farewell salutation. It rose higher above its smaller comrades, and glistened like the purest silver in the blue sky, while the edge of the mountains displayed no snow, and seemed like a thin strip of fog above the nearer hills. Eastward we noticed on the horizon of the extensive plains only low ranges of hills, while to the north the Black Mountains raised their mighty crests and a few snow-clad peaks.
We crossed this southern arm of the Platte, and camped on the other side of it, in order to grant our cattle a few days' rest there, where the most splendid grass and a cool thick wood covered its bank. The bright streams offered us the most glorious fish, which can be almost selected in these streams, as we see them swarm round the bait, and the latter can be dropped before the fish you wish to catch. The neighbourhood of our camp was enlivened by game of every description; on the slopes of the neighbouring Black Mountains we found mountain sheep and black-tailed stags; in the forests between them and the Platte the majestic giant stag was preparing for the rutting season, and with swollen neck whetting the numerous tines of its splendid antlers on the trees. The prairies near us brought to us the elegant Virginian stag and the swift, black-eyed antelope, while the buffalo incessantly passed in all directions: not far from our camp we also found a warren of those interesting little creatures, which are falsely called prairie dogs, as they do not belong to this family, but to that of the badger.
We went out and shot some dozen of these dogs, as they afford a nice dish for a change. They live in burrows under ground, which they throw up like the rabbits, and a hundred of them are frequently found close together. They are very shy, but easy to shoot, as, if you lie down for a little while in the grass, they come out of their holes and give a snapping cry, which has been falsely called barking by some naturalists. They are badgers, about fifteen inches in length, which only live on vegetables, carry a large winter stock into their subterranean houses, and form very numerous families. They frequently quit a place without any visible reason, and wander a long distance over hill and dale in order to seek a new home.
Our horses and pack-cattle were recruited, and we too had recovered from the fatigue of our journey over the last mountains; hence we set out again, and casting many a parting glance at the Bighorn, we followed the Platte in an eastern direction, till at noon we reached a well-trodden path which runs from Fort St. Brain on the southern arm of this river down to the Missouri. We crossed it, and proceeded more to the south-west, in order to escape the numerous Indian hordes going up and down this path. A few days after we crossed the hills we had seen from our last camp, and the sky now rested before us on the interminable horizon of the prairie.
For nearly a week we marched over this green plain with scarce any change in the scene. It was, however, undulating, the flora in the grass gay and varied, and a few trees afforded us shade and firewood morning and evening to prepare our meals. At length hills rose on the horizon, and we soon saw again the darker verdure of forests, which received us into their shady gloom towards evening. In this tour we were so broiled by the sun that we entered the wood with delight, and at once resolved to rest a few days here, if, as we anticipated, there was water at hand. We hurried along a buffalo path into the depths of the forest, and soon heard to our delight the rustling of a neighbouring river, whose banks we speedily reached, and it proved to be a rapidly flowing stream overhung by tall ferns. Owl told us it was one of the numerous sources of the Kansas, which runs eastward to the Missouri. "Here let us build tabernacles," we cried in one voice, but followed the path across the stream to the skirt of the wood, which was no great distance off. We unloaded our cattle in a small clearing off our path, lit a fire, and really built tabernacles, as we made a roof of bushes between several young oaks, which kept off every sunbeam, and in whose immediate vicinity were trees enough to tie up our cattle every night.