We finally left the fort, in company with ten Choctaws.  I had purchased, while in the nation, twelve head of horses, two of which were quarter horses, that is, intended to run a quarter of a mile in singularly quick time.  I obtained them of a half-bred Choctaw, and they were valued at five hundred dollars each.

We encamped, the first night after our departure, about thirty miles distant from Fort Towson.  The next morning I found that my two valuable quarter horses, with six others of the drove, were missing.  I said something about my chance of finding them again, but soon had every hope of the kind destroyed, by being informed that the Pawnee Indians were very numerous in the neighbourhood; that they were great horse thieves; and had undoubtedly appropriated to themselves my valuable beasts.  We went fifty miles further, when we again encamped.  Here the horses of the dumb negro and Scoggins were missing.  They appeared to think their animals might be recovered, and turned back for that purpose, promising to overtake us, if possible, at Fort Smith.

When we arrived at the fort, I disposed of the horses I had left, and took passage on the steamboat Reindeer, for the mouth of White River.  Edmonds insisted on accompanying me.  I made no objection, of course, but was anxious to get rid of him.  It was about the twentieth of May, when we arrived at Montgomery’s Point, on the Mississippi.  Edmonds, daring the passage, frequently sympathized with me on the loss of my horses.  He also, now and then, spoke to me about the widow of Doctor ——­, commiserated her forlorn situation, and stated that he had a strong desire, and in fact determination, to communicate intelligence of her deplorable condition to her friends in Philadelphia.  He asked me, if I did not, myself, think of doing something of the kind.  I told him that I had forgotten her name, and had I remembered it, I hardly thought that I should trouble myself about her or her affairs.  He said, he, too, had forgotten the name, but he could procure it of Scoggins when he returned.

We remained at the Point several days, awaiting the arrival of a steamboat.  Finally, the Chester came along, bound for St. Louis.  I took passage in her, and left Edmonds behind, not a little to my gratification.  We had not proceeded far from the Point, when the Chester broke down, and I was obliged to get on board of a down boat, and return to the Point.  On arriving there, the first person I encountered was the dumb negro, who told me that Edmonds had died suddenly, since my departure, of the cholera, which was raging at that time on the Mississippi, and which cut men down almost without warning.  On inquiry, I found the negro had told me the truth, and must confess I was not a little astonished at it.  But a few hours previously, I had left Edmonds, apparently well; now he was a corpse!  The thought gave me a shade of melancholy, especially as I knew and felt that he had been cut down in guilt; for that he was both a robber and a murderer I could not for a moment doubt.