events her sickness was sufficiently ill-timed and unfortunate.  I succeeded in a second attempt to mount her, and with a slow pace we moved forward on the trail of the Indians.  It led us up a hill and over a dreary plain; and here, to our great mortification, the traces almost disappeared, for the ground was hard as adamant; and if its flinty surface had ever retained the print of a hoof, the marks had been washed away by the deluge of yesterday.  An Indian village, in its disorderly march, is scattered over the prairie, often to the width of full half a mile; so that its trail is nowhere clearly marked, and the task of following it is made doubly wearisome and difficult.  By good fortune plenty of large ant-hills, a yard or more in diameter, were scattered over the plain, and these were frequently broken by the footprints of men and horses, and marked by traces of the lodge-poles.  The succulent leaves of the prickly-pear, also bruised from the same causes, helped a little to guide us; so inch by inch we moved along.  Often we lost the trail altogether, and then would recover it again, but late in the afternoon we found ourselves totally at fault.  We stood alone without clew to guide us.  The broken plain expanded for league after league around us, and in front the long dark ridge of mountains was stretching from north to south.  Mount Laramie, a little on our right, towered high above the rest and from a dark valley just beyond one of its lower declivities, we discerned volumes of white smoke slowly rolling up into the clear air.

“I think,” said Raymond, “some Indians must be there.  Perhaps we had better go.”  But this plan was not rashly to be adopted, and we determined still to continue our search after the lost trail.  Our good stars prompted us to this decision, for we afterward had reason to believe, from information given us by the Indians, that the smoke was raised as a decoy by a Crow war party.

Evening was coming on, and there was no wood or water nearer than the foot of the mountains.  So thither we turned, directing our course toward the point where Laramie Creek issues forth upon the prairie.  When we reached it the bare tops of the mountains were still brightened with sunshine.  The little river was breaking with a vehement and angry current from its dark prison.  There was something in the near vicinity of the mountains, in the loud surging of the rapids, wonderfully cheering and exhilarating; for although once as familiar as home itself, they had been for months strangers to my experience.  There was a rich grass-plot by the river’s bank, surrounded by low ridges, which would effectually screen ourselves and our fire from the sight of wandering Indians.  Here among the grass I observed numerous circles of large stones, which, as Raymond said, were traces of a Dakota winter encampment.  We lay down and did not awake till the sun was up.  A large rock projected from the shore, and behind it the deep water was slowly eddying round and round.