ble river, which
runs from this elevated plain in an easterly direction; and which I take
to be a head-water of the Great Red River of Louisiana, or perhaps of
the Brazos, or Colorado, of Texas. I have called it a considerable
river. That is not quite correct; for although, where they all unite,
they form a good-sized body of water, yet twenty miles farther down, for
three-fourths of the year the channel is perfectly dry; and that is the
case I know not how far beyond. The water, which passes from the
mountain at all times, is either evaporated by the hot sun, or sinks
into the sands of its own bed, during a run of twenty miles. It is only
in times of great rain--a rare occurrence here--or when very hot weather
melts an unusual quantity of the snow, that there is water enough to
carry the stream over a flat sandy tract which stretches away to the
eastward. All these things I found out afterwards, and as you, my
friends, know them to be common phenomena of the Desert, I shall not now
dwell upon them.

"I saw that, where we were, there was but little chance of getting
anything to eat. The sides of the mountain were rugged and grim, with
here and there a stunted cedar hanging from the rocks. The small
patches of grass and willows that lined the banks of the little rills--
although cheering to the eye, when compared with the brown barrenness of
the Desert--offered but little prospect that we should get any thing to
eat there. If the Desert stretched away to the south of the mountain,
as we saw that it did to the north, east, and west, then we had only
reached a temporary resting-place, and we might still perish, if not
from thirst, from what was equally bad--hunger.

"This was uppermost in our thoughts at the time,--for we had not eaten a
morsel during that day; so we turned our attention to the piece of dried
meat.

"`Let us cook it, and make a soup,' said Mary; `that will be better for
the children.' My poor wife! I saw that the extreme fatigue she had
undergone had exhausted her strength, yet still she endeavoured to be
cheerful.

"`Yes, papa, let us make soup; soup is very nice,' added Frank, trying
to cheer his mother by showing that he was not dismayed.

"`Very well, then,' I replied. `Come, Cudjo, shoulder your axe, and let
us to the mountain for wood. Yonder are some pine-trees near the
foot,--they will make an excellent fire.'

"So Cudjo and I started for the wood, which was growing about three