cold. After some persuasion, I prevailed upon Lee to kindle me a handful of fire, by which I lay alone for two or three hours, amidst the dreary howling of wolves, Mr. Lee not wishing to trust himself near such a beacon. Nothing, however, further molested us, and, after cooking and eating a portion of a fat buck elk, which my companion had contrived to kill in the midst of our flight, we continued our journey by the light of the moon. After proceeding about 20 miles farther down the Arkansa, unable to keep up with Lee and his boat, at noon we agreed to part. I took with me some small pieces of the boiled elk, with a portion also uncooked, and furnished myself, as I thought, with the means of obtaining fire, but, when evening arrived, I was greatly mortified to find all my attempts to obtain this necessary element abortive. My gun was also become useless, all the powder having got wet by last night's adventure.
14th.] Fatigued with the sand-beaches, as hot and cheerless as the African deserts, I left the banks of the river; and, after travelling with extreme labour through horrible thickets for three miles, in which the Ambrosias were far higher than my head on horseback, I, at length, arrived amongst woody hills, and a few miles further came out, to my great satisfaction, into the open prairies, from whence, in an elevated situation, I immediately recognised the Verdigris river. At night, though late, I arrived on its wide alluvial lands, lined with such an impenetrable thicket, that I did not attain the bank, and had to lie down alone, in the rank weeds, amidst musquetoes, without fire, food, or water, as the meat with which I had been provided was raw, and spoiled by the worms.
{211} 15th.] With all the advantage of day-light, it was still difficult to penetrate through the thicket, and ford
