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Show 414 THE CALIFORNIA AND OREGON TRAIL. search of it, thinking that he had left it at the camp · He ap. proached the pla:ce cautiously, fearful that Indians might be lurking about, for a deserted camp is dangerous to return to. He saw no enemy, but the scene was a wild and dreary one; the prairie was overshadowed by dull, leaden clouds, for the day was dark and gloomy. The ashes of the fires were still smoking by the river s1de; the grass around them was trampled down by men and horses, and strewn with all the litter of a camp. Our departure had been a gathering signal to the birds and beasts of prey; Shaw assured me that literally dozens of wolves were prowling about the smouldering fires, while multitudes were roaming over the prairie around ; they all fled as he approached, some running over the sand-beds and some over the grassy plains. The vultures in great clouds were soaring overhead, and the dead bull near the camp was completely blackened by the flock that had alighted upon it; they flapped their broad wings, and stretched upward their crested heads and long skinny necks, fearing to remain, yet reluctant to leave their disgusting feast. As he searched about the fires he saw the wolves seated on the distant hills waiting for his departure. Having looked in vain for his knife, he mounted again, and left the wolves and the vultures to banquet freely upon the carrion of the camp. ' CHAPTER XXVI. DOWN THE ARKANSAS. "They quitted not their harness bright, Neither by day nor yet by night; They Jay down to rest With corslet laced, Pillowed on buckler cold and hard. They carved at the meal With gloves of steel, And they drank the red wine through the helmet barred." THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL. IN the summer of 1846, the wild and lonely banks of the Upper Arkansas beheld fbr the first time the passage of an army. General Kearney, on his march to Santa Fe, adopted this route in preference to the old trail of the Cimarron. When we came down, the main body of the troops had already passed on; Price's Missouri regiment, however, was still on the way, having left the frontier much later than the rest; and about this time we beaan to meet them moving along the trail, one or 0 two companies at a time. No men ever embarked upon a military expedition with a greater love for the work before them than the Missourians; but if discipline and subordination |