ounted as we all were, he sometimes nearly distanced us. We were
now among the branches of the Pickatonick, and the country had lost its
prairie character and become rough and broken. We went dashing on,
sometimes down ravines, sometimes through narrow passes, where, as I
followed, I left fragments of my veil upon the projecting and interwoven
branches. Once my hat became entangled, and, had not my husband sprung
to my rescue, I must have shared the fate of Absalom, Jerry's ambition
to keep his place in the race making it probable he would do as did the
mule who was under the unfortunate prince.

There was no halting upon the route, and, as we kept the same pace until
three o'clock in the afternoon, it was beyond a question that when we
reached "Kellogg's" we had travelled at least thirty miles. One of my
greatest annoyances during the ride had been the behavior of the little
beast Brunet. He had been hitherto used as a saddle-horse, and had been
accustomed to a station in the file near the guide or leader. He did not
relish being put in the background as a pack-horse, and accordingly,
whenever we approached a stream, where the file broke up to permit each
horseman to choose his own place of fording, it was, invariably the case
that just as I was reining Jerry into the water, Brunet would come
rushing past and throw himself into our very footsteps. Plunging,
snorting, and splashing me with water, and sometimes even starting Jerry
into a leap aside, he more than once brought me into imminent danger of
being tossed into the stream. It was in vain that, after one or two such
adventures, I learned to hold back and give the vexatious little animal
the precedence. His passion seemed to be to go into the water precisely
at the moment Jerry did; and I was obliged at last to make a bargain
with young Roy to dismount and hold him at every stream until I had got
safely across.

"Kellogg's"[16] was a comfortable mansion, just within the verge of a
pleasant "grove of timber," as a small forest is called by Western
travellers. We found Mrs. Kellogg a very respectable-looking matron, who
soon informed us she was from the city of New York. She appeared proud
and delighted to entertain Mr. Hamilton, for whose family, she took
occasion to tell us, she had, in former days, been in the habit of doing
needle-work.

The worthy woman provided us an excellent dinner, and afterwards
installed me in a rocking-chair beside a large fire, with th