INTRODUCTION 21 



doin's." My route takes me via New York, the 

 Lakes, and St. Louis, to Fort Leavenworth or In- 

 dependence, on the Indian frontier. Thence, pack- 

 ing my " possibles " on a mule, and mounting a 

 buffalo horse (Panchito, if he is alive), I strike the 

 Santa Fe trail to the Arkansa, away up that river 

 to the mountains, winter in the Bayou Salade, 

 where Killbuck and La Bonte joined the Yutes, 

 cross the mountains next spring to Great Salt 

 Lake — and that's far enough to look forward to 

 — always supposing my hair is not lifted by 

 Comanche or Pawnee on the scalping route of the 

 Coon Creeks and Pawnee Fork.' 



" Poor fellow ! he spoke lightly, in the buoyancy 

 of youth and a confident spirit, of the fate he little 

 thought to meet, but which too surely overtook 

 him — not indeed by Indian blade, but by the no 

 less deadly stroke of disease. Another motive, be- 

 sides that love of rambling and adventure which, 

 once conceived and indulged, is so difficult to erad- 

 icate, impelled him across the Atlantic. He had 

 for some time been out of health at intervals, and 

 he thought the air of his beloved prairies would be 

 efficacious to work a cure. In a letter to a friend, 

 in the month of May last, he thus referred to the 

 probable origin of the evil : — 



" ' I have been confined to my room for many 

 days, from the effects of an accident I met with 

 in the Rocky Mountains, having been spilt from 



