Page:Rocky Mountain life.djvu/185



CHAPTER XVIII.
Hunting excursion. Thirst more painful than hunger. Geological observations. Mournful casualty. Sad scene of sepulture. Melancholy night. Voyage in an empty boat. Ruins of a Pawnee village at Cedar Bluff. Plover creek. Cache Grove. Thousand Islands. Abandon boat. Exploring company. A horrible situation. Agony to torment. Pawnee village. Exemplary benevolence of an Indian chief. Miserable fourth of July. Four days' starvation. Arrival at Council Bluff. Proceed to Independence.

FOR two days preceding we had been without eating, and our first effort was to procure a re-supply of provisions. Both crews started out with their rifles in pursuit of game, though not the foot-print of any living creature appeared to excite even the faintest hope of success.

Still, however, we kept on, determined not to despair so long as the use of legs remained to us.

Having travelled some fifteen miles, chance threw in our way a doe-elk with her fawn, which the unerring aim of a rifle speedily laid dead before us. Soon as opened, the liver disappeared at the demands of voracious appetites, and next to it the marrow bones and kidneys.

The process of cooking was then commenced over a fire of bois de vache, which was continued till each stomach was abundantly satisfied. But, here another enemy assumed the place of hunger, and one far more painful in its nature. There was not a drop of water to allay our thirst short of the river, fifteen miles distant, —over an open sand-prairie and beneath the scorching rays of a vertical sun.

I can endure hunger for many days in succession without experiencing any very painful sensations, —I can lie down and forget it in the sweet unconsciousness of sleep, or feast my imagination upon the rich-spread tables of dreams; — but not so with thirst. It cannot be forgotten, sleeping or waking, while existence is retained. It will make itself known and felt! It will parch your tongue and burn your throat, despite your utmost endeavors to thrust it from memory!

Each one shouldering his burden from the carcase, we took up our line of march for the boat, where, arriving in four or five hours subsequently, we quenched our burning thirst in the water of the thrice welcome stream.

The country travelled over during this excursion, for the first ten or twelve miles, was a level plain, presenting a thin vegetable mould with a luxuriant growth of grass and herbage, upon a substratum of sand and gravel.

The remainder of our route led through a ridge of hills, many of them naked, others clothed with grass and ornamented with pines; — between the tumuli

were many beautiful vallons, gorgeously decked with wild-flowers in full bloom, and arrayed in mantles of living green; while thick clusters of fruit-bearing trees and shrubs attested the general fecundity and lent their enchantment to the scene.