SODA SPRING. 169 



campment, in the interim, on their way to the States. Having devoted a 

 number of years to the business of trapping, few possess a more intimate 

 knowledge of this country than they. The former of these gentlemen was 

 on his return from Oregon with dispatches for the U, S. Government, and 

 had acted as pilot for a party of emigrants to that territory during the pre- 

 vious summer. After conducting his charge to their place of destination, 

 he and his companion had travelled thus far alone,* — a distance of more 

 than one thousand miles. 



Sept. I9th. Leaving Daugherty's creek we resumed our course, and 

 reached the Arkansas the next day, about noon. Here we encamped in a 

 small grove of cottonwood upon the right bank, a few miles above the 

 mouth of Fontaine qui Bouit. 



In gaining this point we travelled some forty-five miles, mostly over a 

 sandy prairie, s,lightly undulating to the leftward, but, to the right, descri- 

 bing the waves of a tempest-tossed ocean. 



Its general character is sterility; the grass gowing thinly and being of a 

 coarse kind, with the exception of that of the creek bottoms, which affords 

 several varieties of a lusty size, mingled with occasional. spreads of prele — • 

 a choice article for the subsistence of horses and mules. 



In passing along, I observed a new species of the cacti family, that grew 

 in a shurb-Iike form to a height of five or six feet. Its stalk was round 

 and fully an inch in diameter. 



This made the fourth variety of cactus noticed during the past few days. 

 Of these, two resemble the common " prickly pear " in their appearance. 

 Another species, however, w^as egg-shaped, bearing a fruit much like the 

 cranberry in color and form. At the proper season, it also produces a beau- 

 tiful red flower, that emits a most agreeable perfume, in some measure 

 atoning for its dreaded intrusion upon the path of the wayfarer. 



Fontaine qui Bouit, or the Boiling Fountain, is the name bestowed upon 

 a consid rable stream that heads under Pike's Peak, in lat. 38'-* 52' 10" 

 north, long. 105° 22' 45'' west from Greenwich, and pursues a southerly 

 course till it unites with the Arkansas. 



This name is derived from two singular springs, situated within a few 

 yards of each other at the creek's head, both of which emit water in the 

 form of vapor, accompanied with a hissing noise — the one strongly impreg- 

 nated with su-phur and the other with soda.f 



^ * Before reaching the States, however, he was robbed of everything in his posses- 

 sion by a war-party of Pawnees, whom he had imprudently suffered to obtain the 

 advantage. He w<mld, doubtless, have been killed had it not been for the determined 

 courage of Van Dusen. The latter, seizing his rifle, levelled it at the foremost and 

 thus deterred a farther advance : tlien, by an adroit movement, breaking from 

 them, set pursuit at defiance through his fleetness of foot. 



The Pawnees, now well aware that further outrages would be made known and 

 become a subject of invesrigation by the U. S. Government, forbore their designs, 

 and returned to Fitzpatrick his gun and one mule, with whicli he accomjilished the 

 remamder of his journey alone. Van Dusen, having succeeded in reaching Bent's 

 Forr on the Arkansas, reported his companion as killed by them. 



t Ca.pt. Fremotit, who visited Fontaine qui Bouit in the summer of '43, has furnish- 

 ed the following analysis of an incrustaiion with which the water of this spring ha:: 



