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nt of the camps_. By the number of these, we knew to a certainty that we were approaching the caravan. We were in high hopes of being able to come up with it, before it should enter the mountain-passes--more dangerous to the traveller than even the plains themselves: because at that season more beset by bands of marauding savages. Under the influence of these hopes, we were pressing forward, with all the haste it was in our power to make; when our journey was varied by an incident of a somewhat unexpected character. CHAPTER FORTY ONE. AN UN-PRAIRIE-LIKE APPARITION. The incident referred to occurred high up the Arkansas, at the celebrated grove known as the "Big Timbers." We had started about two hours before sundown, and were riding in a due westerly direction, over a "rolling" prairie--the ridges of which, as ill-luck would have it, ran transversely to our course: causing the path to be constantly going upward or downward. It was not this that troubled us; but the fact that, as we crested each swell, we were freshly exposed to observation from a distance; and this recurring so often, kept us continuously on the alert. Once or twice, we thought of halting again till after the sun had gone down: for we knew that we were treading upon dangerous ground; but, failing to perceive any fresh Indian sign, we gave way to our irresolution, and continued on. We proceeded with caution, however: always ascending in stealthy silence, and peeping carefully over the ridges before crossing them. After reconnoitring the intervening valleys, we would ride rapidly across, to make up the time we had lost in our reconnoissance. In this way we had travelled some eight or ten miles--until the sun was so far down, that his lower limb rested on the horizon. We were ascending a ridge, and had got our eyes on a level with its crest, when upon the face of another ridge--about half a mile further on--we beheld two forms outlined against the declivity. We saw that they were human forms; and that they were Indians was our first thought; but a moment's observation convinced us we were in error. They were afoot--Indians would have been on horseback. There was no floating drapery about their bodies--Indians would have had something of this sort; besides there were other circumstances observable in their figures and movements, that negatived the supposition of their being red-skins. They were singularly disproportioned in size: on
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