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Show CHAPTER IV. 'JUMPING OFF. ' 'WE forded the river and clomb the high hill, Never our steeds for a day stood still; Whether we lay in the cave or the shed, Our sleep feB soft on the hardest bed ; Whether we couched in our rough capote, On the rougher plank of our gliding boat, Or stretched on the sand, or our saddles spread As a pillow beneath the resting head, Fresh we woke upon the morrow ; All our thoughts and words had scope, We had health and we had hope, Toil and travel, but no sorrow,' SIEGE oF CoRINTH. THE reader need not be told that John Bull never leaves home without encumbering himself with the greatest possible load of luggage. Our companions were no exception to the rule. They had a wagon drawn by six mules, and crammed with provisions for six months, besides ammunition enouah for 0 a regiment ; spare ·rifles and fowling-pieces, ropes and harness ; personal baggage, and a miscellaneous assortment of articles, which produced infinite embarrassment on the journey. They had also decorated their persons with telescopes and portable 'JUMPING OFJ?.' 37 compasses, and carried English double-barrelled rifles of sixteen to the pound calibre, slung to their saddles in dragoon fashion. By sunrise on the twenty-third of May we had breakfasted; the tents were levelled, the animals saddled and harnessed, and all was prepared. 'A vance done! get up!' cried Delorier from his seat in front of the cart. Wright, our friends' muleteer, after some swearing and lashing, got his insubordinate train in motion, and then the whole party filed from the ground. Thus we bade a long adieu to bed and board, and the principles of Blackstone's Commentaries. The day was a most auspicious one ; and yet Shaw and I felt certain misgivings, which in the sequel proved but too well founded. We had just learned that though R had taken it upon him to adopt this course without consulting us, not a single man in the party was acquainted with it; and the absurdity of our friend's high-handed measure very soon became manifest. His plan was to .strike the trail of several companies of dragoons, who last summer had made an expedition under Colonel l(earney to Fort Laramie, and by this means to reach the grand trail of the Oregon emigrants up the Platte. We rode for an hour or two, when a familiar cluster of buildings appeared on a little hill. 'Rallo !' shouted the Kickapoo trader from over his fence, 'where are you going?' A few rather emphatic exclamations might have been heard among us, when we found that we had gone miles out of our way, and were not advanced an inch toward the Rocky Mountains. So we turned in the direction the trader indicated ; and with the sun for a guide, began to trace a 'bee-line' across the . . prairies. We struggled through copses and lines of wood ; we |