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Show I: 18 THE CALIFORNIA AND OREGON TRAIL. Westport, a grandson of Daniel Boone, the pioneer. This foretaste of prairie experience was very soon followed by another. ,;v estport was scarcely out of sight, when we encountered a deep muddy gully, of a species that afterward became but too familiar to us ; and here for the space of an hour or more the cart stuck fast. CHAPTER II. BREAKING THE ICE. " Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase, And marvel men should quit their easy chair, The weary way and long long league to trace;Oh there is sweetness in the p1·airie air, And life that bloated ease can never hope to share." CIIILDE HAROLDE. BoTH Shaw and myself were tolerably inured to the vicissitudes of travelling. We had experienced them under various forms, and a birch canoe was as familiar to us as a steamboat. The restlessness, the love of wilds and hatred of cities, natural perhaps in early years to every unperverted son of Adam, was not our only motive for undertaking the present journey. My companion hoped to shake off the effects of a disorder that had impaired a constitution originally hardy and robust; and I was anxious to pursue some inquiries relative to the character and usages of the remote Indian nations, being already familiar with many of the border tribes. Emerging from the mud-hole where we last took leave of the reader, we pursued our way far some time along the narrow track, in the checkered sunshine and shadow of the woods, |
