swollen
and angry torrent rolled, had been the dry, gravelly bed where joyous
parties labored; that beneath those cedars, where now the young
alligator stirred the muddy slime, we used to sit and chat in pleasant
companionship; that human joys and passions and hopes once lived and
flourished in that little space where ruin and desolation had now set
their marks, and where the weariest traveller would not linger, so
sorrow-struck and sad was every feature of the scene.

Poor Halkett was uppermost in my thoughts,--his remembrance of his
old mother, his plans for her future happiness and comfort, formed,
doubtless, many a long year before, and only realized to be dashed
forever! How many a wanderer and outcast, doubtless, like him, have sunk
into unhonored graves in far-away lands, and of whom no trace exists,
and who are classed among the worthless and the heartless of their
families; and yet, if we had record of them, we might learn, perhaps,
how thoughts of home--of some dear mother, of some kind sister, of some
brother who had been more than father--had spirited them on to deeds of
daring and privation, and how, in all the terrible conflict of danger in
which their days were spent, one bright hope, of returning home at last,
glittered like a light-ship on a lonely sea, and shed a radiance when
all around was dark and dreary.

The third day broke, and still found me lingering beside the fatal
torrent, not only without meeting with any of my former comrades, but
even of that party who had returned to the Indian village not one came
back. In humble imitation of prairie habit, I erected a little cross on
the spot, and with my penknife inscribed poor Halkett's name. This done,
I led my horse slowly away through the tangled underwood till I reached
the open plain, then I struck out in a gallop, and rode in the direction
where the sun was setting.

The mere detail of personal adventures, in which the traits of character
or the ever-varying aspects of human nature find no place, must always
prove wearisome. The most "hair-breadth 'scapes" require for their
interest the play of passions and emotions; and in this wise the perils
of the lonely traveller amid the deserts of the Far West could not vie
in interest with the slightest incident of domestic life, wherein human
cares and hopes and joys are mingled up.

I will not longer trespass on the indulgence of any one who has
accompanied me so far, by lingering over the accide