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Show 64 TEAVELS AND ADVENTUEES IN THE FAE WEST. more. They went so far as to point out the very man who went to the fire. Mr. submitted to the walk with as good a grace as possible. We had a long journey that day, but he manfully accomplished it; and I heard him say, afterwards, that he richly deserved it. Imagine twenty odd men, 600 miles from the frontiers, at the commencement of a severe winter, deprived of their animals, on an open prairie, surrounded by Camanches, Pawnees and other tribes of hostile Indians. I am fully convinced that but for the "watchfulness" of Col. Fremont, we should have been placed in this awkward predicament. IMMENSE HEEDS OF BUFFALO. On the divide, between Walnut Creek and the Arkansas River, we travelled through immense herds of buffalo; at one time there could not have been fewer than two hundred thousand in sight. All around us, as far as the eye could reach, the prairie was completely black with them; they at times impeded our progress. We stopped for more than an hour to allow a single herd to gallop, at full speed, across our path, while the whole party amused themselves with singling out particular ones, and killing them. I essayed, at different times, to daguerreotype them while in motion, but was not successful, although I made several pictures of distant herds. On this " divide" I saw numbers of prairie dogs, they ran to their holes on our approach ; a small sized owl, most generally stood as sentinel near the hole. |