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Show 106 THE CALIFORNIA AND OREGON TRAIL. looking fellows, thin and swarthy, with care-worn anxious faces, and lips rigidly compressed. They had good cause for anxiety; it was three days since. they first encamped here, and on the night of their arrival they had lost one hundred and twentythree of their best cattle, driven off by the wolves, through the neglect of the man on guard. This discouraging and alarming calamity was not the first that had overtaken them. Since leaving the settlements, they had met with nothing but misfortune. Some of their party had died ; one man had been killed by the Pawnees; and about a week before, they had been plundered by the Dahcotahs of all their best horses, the wretched animals on which our visitors were mounted being the only ones that were left. They had encamped, they told us, near sunset, by the side of the Platte, and their oxen were scattered over the meadow, while the band of horses were feeding a little farther off. Suddenly the ridges of the hills were alive with a swarm of mounted Indians, at least six hundred in number, who, with a tremendous yell, came pouring down toward the camp, rushing up within a few rods, to the great terror of the emigrants ; but suddenly wheeling, they swept around the band of horses, and in five minutes had disappeared with their prey through the openings of the hills. As these emigrants were telling their story, we saw four other men approaching. They proved to be R and his companions, who had encountered no mischance of any kind, b~t had only wandered too far in pursuit of the game. They said they had seen no Indians, but only 'millions of buffalo;' and both R a d s 1 h d . saddles. n ore a meat dangling behind then· The emigrants re-crossed the river, and we prepared to TAKING FRENCH LEAVE. 107 follow. First the heavy ox-wagons plunged down the bank, and dragged slowly over the sand-beds; sometimes the hoofs of the oxen were scarcely wetted by the thin sheet of water; and the next moment the river would be boiling against their sides, and eddying fiercely around the wheels. Inch by inch they receded from the shore, dwindling every moment, until at length they seemed to be floating far out in the very middle of the river. A more critical experiment awaited us; for our little mule-cart was but ill-fitted for the passage of so swift a stream. We watched it with anxiety till it seemed to be a little motionless white speck in the midst of the waters; and it was motionless, for it had stuck fast in a quicksand. The little mules were losing their footing, the wheels were sinking deeper and deeper, and the water began to rise through the bottom and drench the goods within. All of us who had remained on the hither bank galloped to the rescue ; the men jumped into the water, adding their strength to that of the mules, until by much effort the cart was extricated, and conveyed in safety across. As we gained the other bank, a rough group of men surrounded us. They were not robust, nor large of frame, yet they had an aspect of hardy endurance. Finding at home no scope for their fiery energies, they had betaken themselves to the prairie ; and in them seemed to be revived, with redoubled force, that fierce spirit which impelled their ancestors, scarce more ~awless than themselves, from the German forests, to inundate Europe, and break to pieces the Roman empire. A fortnight afterward, this unfortunate party passed Fort Laramie, while we were there. Not one of their missing oxen had been recovered, though they had remained encamped a week in search of them ; and they had been compelled to abandon ··~ , · ..... ... .1''~ • |