winds had ceased their ragings, and a clement atmosphere seemed pouring upon us the balm of sympathy for miseries so recently endured.
But their direful effects were not thus easily eradicated. The feet of one poor fellow were so badly frozen, it was three months before he entirely recovered;
while another lost a portion of one of his ears. As for myself, a severe cold settled in my teeth, producing an intensely painful ache and swoollen face, that continued for eight or ten days.
It seems almost miraculous that we should have escaped so easily, and often, even after so long an interval, I shudder at the recollection of this anguishing scene.
Two days subsequently we reached our destination, and found all things pretty much in statu quo.
CHAPTER XII.
Another drunken spree. Horses devoured by wolves. An upset. A blowing up. Daring feat of wolves. A girl offered for liquor. Winter on the Platte. Boat building. Hunting expedition. Journey up the Platte. Island camp. Narrow escape. Snow storm. Warm Spring. Pass of the Platte into the prairies. A valley. Bitter Cottonwood. Indian forts. Wild fruit. Root-digging. Cherry tea and its uses. Geology of the country. Soils, grasses, herbs, plants, and purity of atmosphere. Horse-shoe creek. A panther. Prairie dogs and their peculiarities.
OUR intended evacuation of the post was postponed till the week following, and, meanwhile, the few customers, that still hung on, were careful to improve the passing opportunity of steeping their senses in liquor.
Another general drunken frolic was the consequence, ending as usual in a fight and still further attempts upon the life of our trader.
Soon after this, our catalogue of disasters was increased by the death of two horses, which fell a prey to wolves.
The case was an aggravated one, and provoking in the extreme. Both of them were "buffalo horses," and the fleetest and most valuable in our possession, —in fact, they were the only ones of which we ventured to boast. We had others of little worth, so poor and feeble they could oppose none resistance to magpies,30 and much less to the rapacity of wolves.
But, no. These blood-thirsty depredators, desirous of a feast on fat things, were determined to have it, reckless of cost, —and, the encrimsoned tracks, coursing the snowy plain in every direction where passed the swift
