156 HORSE, FOOT, AND DRAGOONS. 



During our parley his men remain quietly at their posts, and 

 whpn their leader, his questions answered, returns towards them, 

 and we move on again, we can see them mount and ride off 

 over the hills in a straggling, dust-enveloped little column. 



Down the river, now slowly and cautiously scraping over 

 the wide sand-bars, now swiftly gliding along, aided by the 

 rapid flowing current ; down the river through the Country of 

 .Hell, with its broad desert plains and barren brown hills, inky 

 black where the moving clouds cast their shadows; down the 

 river past old abandoned Indian trading- posts fast crumbling 

 into ruin, past the lonely military telegraph -station, where we 

 learn of the passage of a " dugout," with its crew of fugitive 

 desperadoes flying from the wrath of the cow-boys; down the 

 river, between perpendicular sand-banks, crumbling away at the 

 touch of the " rollers " caused by the passage of our boat, scar- 

 ing up flocks of wild-geese^ and swift-flying, blue-winged heron ; 

 down the river through lovely prairies covered with waving 

 grasses and gayly colored wild-flowers, into the Indian country, 

 until, looking across one of the long, flat, outrunning points of 

 land that mark the constantly recurring curves of the river, 

 there, shining in the morning sun, the distant buildings of the 

 military post, our destination, gleam bright under the blue, 

 white, and scarlet folds of the national standard floating grace- 

 fully out from its tall pole against the deep warm purple of 

 the sky beyond. Hundreds of Indian tepees are scattered 

 over the wide plain, and at our approach we can see the in- 

 mates hurrying to the banks to watch the arrival of the great 

 steamer. Wild - looking savages, their faces smeared with 

 streaks of bright vermilion or orange, are watering their horses, 

 their gaudily clothed forms reflecting straight down in the 

 mirror-like surface of the water; some half-clad lads, who, lying 

 prone upon their bellies and leaning far over the high banks, 



