CHAPTER XII. 



THE WILD GOATS. 



[|Y ascending the course of the river Arkansas, 

 which has given its name to one of the largest 

 states in the North American Republic, in- 

 corporated some forty years ago, the traveller 

 soon arrives at the foot of the Masserne Mountains, a 

 range of precipitous peaks in continuation of the great 

 chain of the Cordilleras. This vast desert, whose soil is 

 chiefly trodden by a few nomadic Indian tribes and a legion 

 of wild animals, the only beings which relieve with an 

 aspect of life its wide and awful solitudes, is covered for 

 eight months in the year with a spotless carpet of thick 



