DENSE FOG. 145 



Mrs. Martin put me up all kinds of good things for my 

 journey, such as cold chickens, bread and butter, and hard- 

 boiled eggs, and I left the ranche on the 3rd of July, with a 

 thick fog all round, which made it a poor sort of day for one 

 to find the way over a wild country ; but I had been away so 

 long that I feared my companions would come to look for me, 

 when we might very easily miss one another. I knew the 

 direction which I had to keep, and rode on for some hours, the 

 fog getting thicker every minute, and on reaching a small 

 stream about midday, I camped for dinner, and remained for 

 two hours, when I started again. I intended camping that 

 night on the Little Blue River, but could not find it, so I 

 rode far into the night, when I saw something which at first 

 startled me very much. 



I was in a totally uninhabited part of the country, and yet 

 there above me was a house with a bright light shining from 

 several windows, and it was not until I got nearer that I made 

 it out to be a deserted house, which had lost its roof, and the 

 moon was shining through where the windows had been, only 

 showing for a few moments through a rift in a cloud, and then 

 all was dark again. 



This place I thought would do to camp in for the night, so I 

 rode up the hill on which it stood, disturbing an old buffalo 

 bull which was lying asleep near it, and which looked enormous 

 in that light and against the sky line. I found that nearly all 

 the roof was gone, and all the doors and windows, but there 

 was enough left to shelter me from the heavy dew, which was 

 almost like rain, and I ripped off some remains of flooring for 

 a fire, and having made the room look quite cheerful with a 

 bright blaze, I off-saddled and brought in everything, picketing 



