le-distilled monotony of these great American grass-patches--you
can't call them deserts, for at times they represent interminable
flower-gardens, of the most elegant and voluptuous description.

Oh, how home and its comforts floated in my mind's eye; how I
envied--not for the first time either--the unthankful inmates of even a
second-rate boarding-house! A negro cabin, a shed, dog kennel, and a hoe
cake, had charms, in my thoughts, just then, enough to exalt them into
fit themes for the poets and painters. Having trudged along, at least
three miles, in one direction, I struck a large _mot_, that jutted out
into the prairie. Here I concluded it was best to hang up for the night.
I was soaking wet--hungry and wolfish enough. My utter desperation
induced me to work for an hour with some percussion caps, powder, and a
piece of greased tow linen, to get a blaze of fire, Ingins or no Ingins.
I began to wish I was a Camanche myself, or that the red devils would
surround me, give me one bite and a drink, and I'd die happy. All of a
sudden, I got sight of a blaze! Yes, a real fire loomed up in the
distance! It was Mat and his deer, in luck, doing well, while I was cold
as Caucasus, and hollow as a flute. I riz, stretched my stiff limbs, and
struck a bee line for the light. After wading, stumbling, and tramping,
until my weary legs would bear me no longer, I had the mortification to
see the fire at as great a distance as when I first started. This about
knocked me. I concluded to give up right in my tracks, and let myself be
wet down into _papier mache_ by the descending elements. Blessed was he
that invented sleep, says Sancho Panza, but he was a better workman that
invented _spunk_. All of a sudden I plucked up my spunk, and by a sort
of martial command, ordered my limbs to duty, and marched straight for
the fire in the weary distance. A steady and toilsome perseverance over
brake and bush, mud, ravine, grass and water, at length brought me near
the fire. And then, suspicion arose, if I fell upon a Mexican or Indian
camp, the evils and perils of the night would turn up in the morning
with a human barbecue, and these impressions were nearly sufficient
inducement for me to go no further. It might be my friend Mat's fire,
and it might not be: it wasn't very likely he would dare to raise a
fire, and the more I debated, the worse complexion things bore.
Involuntarily, however, I edged on up towards the fire, which was going
down app