“We will camp here,” I said, pointing to a dense grove of trees lower down the stream.  Raymond and I turned toward it, but the Indian stopped and called earnestly after us.  When we demanded what was the matter, he said that the ghosts of two warriors were always among those trees, and that if we slept there, they would scream and throw stones at us all night, and perhaps steal our horses before morning.  Thinking it as well to humor him, we left behind us the haunt of these extraordinary ghosts, and passed on toward Chugwater, riding at full gallop, for the big drops began to patter down.  Soon we came in sight of the poplar saplings that grew about the mouth of the little stream.  We leaped to the ground, threw off our saddles, turned our horses loose, and drawing our knives, began to slash among the bushes to cut twigs and branches for making a shelter against the rain.  Bending down the taller saplings as they grew, we piled the young shoots upon them; and thus made a convenient penthouse, but all our labor was useless.  The storm scarcely touched us.  Half a mile on our right the rain was pouring down like a cataract, and the thunder roared over the prairie like a battery of cannon; while we by good fortune received only a few heavy drops from the skirt of the passing cloud.  The weather cleared and the sun set gloriously.  Sitting close under our leafy canopy, we proceeded to discuss a substantial meal of wasna which Weah-Washtay had given me.  The Indian had brought with him his pipe and a bag of shongsasha; so before lying down to sleep, we sat for some time smoking together.  Previously, however, our wide-mouthed friend had taken the precaution of carefully examining the neighborhood.  He reported that eight men, counting them on his fingers, had been encamped there not long before.  Bisonette, Paul Dorion, Antoine Le Rouge, Richardson, and four others, whose names he could not tell.  All this proved strictly correct.  By what instinct he had arrived at such accurate conclusions, I am utterly at a loss to divine.

It was still quite dark when I awoke and called Raymond.  The Indian was already gone, having chosen to go on before us to the Fort.  Setting out after him, we rode for some time in complete darkness, and when the sun at length rose, glowing like a fiery ball of copper, we were ten miles distant from the Fort.  At length, from the broken summit of a tall sandy bluff we could see Fort Laramie, miles before us, standing by the side of the stream like a little gray speck in the midst of the bounding desolation.  I stopped my horse, and sat for a moment looking down upon it.  It seemed to me the very center of comfort and civilization.  We were not long in approaching it, for we rode at speed the greater part of the way.  Laramie Creek still intervened between us and the friendly walls.  Entering the water at the point where we had struck upon the bank, we raised our feet to the saddle behind us, and thus, kneeling as it were on horseback, passed