field and meadow bespoke the exuberant fertility of the soil.  The maize stood rustling in the wind, matured and dry, its shining yellow ears thrust out between the gaping husks.  Squashes and enormous yellow pumpkins lay basking in the sun in the midst of their brown and shriveled leaves.  Robins and blackbirds flew about the fences; and everything in short betokened our near approach to home and civilization.  The forests that border on the Missouri soon rose before us, and we entered the wide tract of shrubbery which forms their outskirts.  We had passed the same road on our outward journey in the spring, but its aspect was totally changed.  The young wild apple trees, then flushed with their fragrant blossoms, were now hung thickly with ruddy fruit.  Tall grass flourished by the roadside in place of the tender shoots just peeping from the warm and oozy soil.  The vines were laden with dark purple grapes, and the slender twigs of the maple, then tasseled with their clusters of small red flowers, now hung out a gorgeous display of leaves stained by the frost with burning crimson.  On every side we saw the tokens of maturity and decay where all had before been fresh and beautiful.  We entered the forest, and ourselves and our horses were checkered, as we passed along, by the bright spots of sunlight that fell between the opening boughs.  On either side the dark rich masses of foliage almost excluded the sun, though here and there its rays could find their way down, striking through the broad leaves and lighting them with a pure transparent green.  Squirrels barked at us from the trees; coveys of young partridges ran rustling over the leaves below, and the golden oriole, the blue jay, and the flaming red-bird darted among the shadowy branches.  We hailed these sights and sounds of beauty by no means with an unmingled pleasure.  Many and powerful as were the attractions which drew us toward the settlements, we looked back even at that moment with an eager longing toward the wilderness of prairies and mountains behind us.  For myself I had suffered more that summer from illness than ever before in my life, and yet to this hour I cannot recall those savage scenes and savage men without a strong desire again to visit them.

At length, for the first time during about half a year, we saw the roof of a white man’s dwelling between the opening trees.  A few moments after we were riding over the miserable log bridge that leads into the center of Westport.  Westport had beheld strange scenes, but a rougher looking troop than ours, with our worn equipments and broken-down horses, was never seen even there.  We passed the well-remembered tavern, Boone’s grocery and old Vogel’s dram shop, and encamped on a meadow beyond.  Here we were soon visited by a number of people who came to purchase our horses and equipage.  This matter disposed of, we hired a wagon and drove on to Kansas Landing.  Here we were again received under the hospitable roof of our old friend Colonel Chick, and seated on his porch we looked down once more on the eddies of the Missouri.