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Show 52 THE CALIFORNIA AND OREGON TRAIL. f: l tep would have involved our boots in a mud where a a se s . ' ' . h' h had befallen Deloner s moccasons. catastrophe hke that w IC h . d . t . we separated, so as to searc In The thing looked espei a e . . . Sl ing off to the right, while I kept different duectwns, Jaw go A 1 t I came to the edge of the bushes : straiaht forward. t as . . . theyb were young wa t ei.- ·uows covered with the1r caterpillar- WI ' • ll'1{ e bl OSSOD1S, but intervening between them and the las.t grass clun1p was a bl ac 1{ and deep slouoa h ' over which, by a vigorous exer tw. n, I contrived to J·ump. Then 1 shouldere. d my wa.y through the willows, trampling them down by main force,. ull I callle to a wide stream of water, three inches deep, languidly creeping along over a bottom of sleek mud. My arrival produced a great con1motion. A huge green bull-frog uttered an indignant croak, and jumped off the bank with a loud splash : his webbed feet twinkled above the surface, as he jerked them energetically upward, and I could see him ensconcing himself in the unresisting slime at the bottom, whence several large air bubbles struggled lazily to the top. Some little spotted frogs instantly followed the patriarch's example ; and then three turtles, not larger than a dollar, tumbled themselves off a broad 'lily pod,' where they had been reposing. At the same time a snake, gayly striped with black and yellow, glided out from the bank, and writhed across to the other side; and a small stagnant pool into which my foot had inadvertently pushed a stone was instantly alive with a congregation of black tadpoles. 'Any chance for a bath, where you are?' called out Shaw, from a distance. The answer was not encouraging. I retreated through the willows, and rejoining my companion, we proceeded to push our researches in company. Not far on the right, a rising THE 'BIG BLUE.' 53 ground, covered with trees and bushes, seemed to sink down abruptly to the water, and give hope of better success; so toward this we directed our steps. When we reached the place we found it no easy matter to get along between the hill and the water, impeded as we were by a growth of stiff, ob51:inate young birch trees, laced together by grape-vines. In the twilight, we now and then, to support ourselves, snatched at the touch-me-not stem of some ancient sweet-brier. Shaw, who was in advance, suddenly uttered a somewhat emphatic monosyllable; and looking up, I saw him with one hand grasping a sapling, and one foot irnmersed in the water, from which he had forgotten to withdraw it, his whole attention being engaged in contemplating the movements of a water-snake, about five feet long, curiously checkered with black and green, who was deliberately swimming across the pool. ·There being no stick or stone at hand to pelt him with, we looked at him for a time in silent disgust; and then pushed forward. Our perseverance was at last rewarded ; for several rods farther on, we emerged upon a little level grassy nook among the brushwood, and by an extraordinary dispensation of fortune, the weeds and floating sticks, which elsewhere covered the pool, seemed to have drawn apart, and left a few yards of clear water just in front of this favored spot. We sounded it with a stick; it was four feet deep : we lifted a specimen in our closed hands ; it seemed reasonably transparent, so we decided that the time for action was arrived. But our ablutions were suddenly interrupted by ten thousand punctures, like poisoned needles, and the humming of myriads of overgrown musq uitoes, rising in all directions from their native mud and slime and swarming to the feast. We were fain to beat a retreat \vith all possible speed. |