CHAPTER II. 



THE WILD HOUSE. 



[X two occasions I have visited the Prairies, 

 and lived among the Indians, during my long 

 residence in the United States. On the 

 second expedition my Redskin friends and 

 I found ourselves, one morning in the month of Octo- 

 ber 1848, in front of a chain of bare, precipitous moun- 

 tains which, at one place, sank into a kind of amphi- 

 theatral valley, through whose green depths flowed, like 

 a ribbon of silver, a bright and flashing rivulet, whose 

 banks were clothed in flower - enamelled greensward. 

 Far away, on the incline of the mountains bordering 

 the valley, rose a few trees, with fresh green foliage, 

 whose trunks were adorned with emerald moss. Upon 

 these our eyes delightedly rested, for they made a plea- 



