ed. This fort was then mainly occupied as
a trading post. As the men were neither sick nor wounded, but only half
starved, they found themselves in a few days quite recruited, and ready
again for any adventure of enterprise and hardship. During their sojourn
at the fort the men were not idle. They had their saddles, clothing and
moccasins to repair. All their outfit was in the condition of a ship which
has just weathered a storm with loss of anchor, sails, spars, and leaking
badly.

Having finished their repairs the party, in good condition, with their
mules, set out on a hunting expedition. They were told that in a fertile
region, about fifty miles south of them, large herds of buffaloes had
recently been seen. The weather was delightful. They were all in good
spirits. It was trapper philosophy never to anticipate evil,--never to
borrow any trouble. At a rapid pace they marched through a pleasant,
luxuriant well watered region, entirely forgetful of past sufferings.

On the evening of the second day, as they were emerging from a forest,
there was opened before them a scene of remarkable beauty and grandeur.
Far as the eye could extend towards the south, east and west an undulating
prairie spread, with its wilderness of flowers of every gorgeous hue,
waving in the evening breeze like the gently heaving ocean. The sun was
just setting in a cloudless sky, illuminating with extraordinary
brilliance the enchanting scene. Here and there in the distance of the
boundless plain, a few clumps of trees were scattered, as if nature had
arranged them with the special purpose of decorating the Eden-like
landscape. But that which cheered the hunters more than all the other
aspects of sublimity and loveliness, were the immense herds, grazing on
the apparently limitless prairie. Many of these herds numbered thousands
and yet they appeared but like little spots scattered over the vast
expanse. The hunter had found his paradise; for there were other varieties
of game in that luxuriant pasture, elk, deer, antelopes and there was room
enough for them all.

Our adventurers immediately selected a spot for their camp on the edge of
the forest, near a bubbling spring. With great alacrity they reared their
hut, and arranged all the apparatus for camping, with which they were
abundantly supplied. Poles were cut from the forest, and planted in the
open sunny prairie, with ropes of hide stretched upon them. Upon these
ropes they were to suspend