hose early days were
solitary and desolate beyond the power of description; the Arkansas
River sluggishly followed the tortuous windings of its treeless banks
with a placidness that was awful in its very silence; and whoso traced
the wanderings of that stream with no companion but his own thoughts,
realized in all its intensity the depth of solitude from which Robinson
Crusoe suffered on his lonely island. Illimitable as the ocean, the
weary waste stretched away until lost in the purple of the horizon, and
the mirage created weird pictures in the landscape, distorted distances
and objects which continually annoyed and deceived. Despite its
loneliness, however, there was then, and ever has been for many men, an
infatuation for those majestic prairies that once experienced is never
lost, and it came to the boyish heart of Kit, who left them but with
life, and full of years.

There was not much variation in the eternal sameness of things during
the first two weeks, as the little train moved day after day through
the wilderness of grass, its ever-rattling wheels only intensifying
the surrounding monotony. Occasionally, however, a herd of buffalo was
discovered in the distance, their brown, shaggy sides contrasting with
the never-ending sea of verdure around them. Then young Kit, and two or
three others of the party who were detailed to supply the teamsters and
trappers with meat, would ride out after them on the best of the extra
horses which were always kept saddled and tied together behind the
last wagon for services of this kind. Kit, who was already an excellent
horseman and a splendid shot with the rifle, would soon overtake them,
and topple one after another of their huge fat carcasses over on the
prairie until half a dozen or more were lying dead. The tender humps,
tongues, and other choice portions were then cut out and put in a wagon
which had by that time reached them from the train, and the expedition
rolled on.

So they marched for about three weeks, when they arrived at the crossing
of the Walnut, where they saw the first signs of Indians. They had
halted for that day; the mules were unharnessed, the camp-fires lighted,
and the men just about to indulge in their refreshing coffee, when
suddenly half a dozen Pawnees, mounted on their ponies, hideously
painted and uttering the most demoniacal yells, rushed out of the tall
grass on the river-bottom, where they had been ambushed, and swinging
their buffalo-robes,