Page:Route Across the Rocky Mountains with a Description of Oregon and California.djvu/140

Rh they would have adopted some other surer method of procedure.

The Pawnees were descending the river, and all appearances favored the opinion, that they had been the cause of the great assemblage of Buffalo at the forks of the Platte. Having passed the great band a short distance, very few others were afterwards seen, although the whole valley, on the South side, had been trodden recently, by numerous herds.

That we might not fall into their hands again, we concluded to follow the old Indian's advice; and that we might decieve him also, we determined to do more; and having halted a little before sundown, to take our supper and allow our animals to graze, we proceeded, following the road until it was quite dark, when we left it, and bore off to the South, until we entered the hills: we then turned again, and followed the direction of the river, steering our course by the starts, until after midnight. We then halted and slept still morning without food or water.

As soon as it was light, we again loaded our animals, and steered across the plains for the waters of the Kanzas, which we thought we could reach in a day's travel.

About 12 o'clock we began to differ about the course we were traveling, and came near separating, but finally agreed by changing it a little; and in the evening, after having traveled about forty miles, we came to a tree, by a small brake that ran towards the East, in which we found a pool of water, and stopped for the night.

The way across, between the Platte and the waters of the Kanzas, before the emigrants had made a beaten track, had always been considered very difficult to find. The distance at different places, varies between twenty five and fifty miles; the country is level and monotonous, and had not a single land-mark, by which the traveler may be guided. Many persons much more experienced on the prairie than we, had been lost in attempting to pass from one stream to the other; and the country, form this circumstance, had obtained the name of “The Lost Ground.” The Catholic Priest, who was till with us, being a foreigner, and not at all accustomed tomoving at random, without track or guide, through such wilds, became alarmed at our situation, and declared he was certain that we should never find the trail, and he would be very glad, he said, to giver every thin ghe possessed, to see again the track of a wagon. We were fortunated in changing our course, for if we had not done so, we should have missed entirely, the head of Little Blue River, and would have