The weather had changed and become intensely cold, and we felt that the detention we had met with, even should we now be in the right road, was no trifling matter.  We had not added to our stock of provisions at Dixon’s, wishing to carry as much forage as we were able for our horses, for whom the scanty picking around our encamping-grounds afforded an insufficient meal.  But we were buoyed up by the hope that we were in the right path at last, and we journeyed on until night, when we reached a comfortable “encampment,” in the edge of a grove near a small stream.

Oh, how bitterly cold that night was!  The salted provisions, to which I was accustomed, occasioned me an intolerable thirst, and my husband was in the habit of placing the little tin coffee-pot filled with water at my bed’s head when we went to rest, but this night it was frozen solid long before midnight.  We were so well wrapped up in blankets that we did not suffer from cold while within the tent, but the open air was severe in the extreme.

March 15th.—­We were roused by the bourgeois at peep of day to make preparations for starting.  We must find the Sauk trail this day at all hazards.  What would become of us should we fail to do so?  It was a question no one liked to ask, and certainly one that none could have answered.

On leaving our encampment, we found ourselves entering a marshy tract of country.  Myriads of wild geese, brant, and ducks rose up screaming at our approach.  The more distant lakes and ponds were black with them, but the shallow water through which we attempted to make our way was frozen, by the severity of the night, to a thickness not quite sufficient to bear the horses, but just such as to cut their feet and ankles at every step as they broke through it.  Sometimes the difficulty of going forward was so great that we were obliged to retrace our steps and make our way round the head of the marsh, thus adding to the discomforts of our situation by the conviction that, while journeying diligently, we were, in fact, making very little progress.

This swampy region at length passed, we came upon more solid ground, chiefly the open prairie.  But now a new trouble assailed us.  The weather had moderated, and a blinding snow-storm came on.  Without a trail that we could rely upon, and destitute of a compass, our only dependence had been the sun to point out our direction; but the atmosphere was now so obscure that it was impossible to tell in what quarter of the heavens he was.

We pursued our way, however, and a devious one it must have been.  After travelling in this way many miles, we came upon an Indian trail, deeply indented, running at right angles with the course we were pursuing.  The snow had ceased, and, the clouds becoming thinner, we were able to observe the direction of the sun, and to perceive that the trail ran north and south.  What should we do?  Was it safest to pursue our easterly course, or was it probable that by following