380 BUFFALO LAND. 



inquiries, but, to our intense amusement, he blushed 

 lilie a school-girl when Sachem bluntly remarked 

 that the handwriting was feminine, and that the 

 scientific information in question must certainly be 

 contraband, as it was not offered for our benefit at all, 



A geologist in love is a phenomenon. The dusty 

 museum is no place for Cupid. In his flights, the 

 mischievous boy is apt to hit his head against fossil 

 lizards, and his darts are intercepted by skulls which 

 were petrified before he ever wandered through Para- 

 dise and tried his first barb on poor Adam. The at- 

 mosphere which inwraps the geologist comes from an 

 unlovable age, in which monstrosities existed only 

 by virtue of their expertness in devouring other mon- 

 strosities. No stray spark of love-light flickered, 

 even for an instant, over that waste of waters and 

 gigantic ferns. 



It was apparent that science would suffer, unless 

 the Solomon river was included in our homeward 

 route. We had examined the heart of Buffalo Land, 

 having traversed its center from east to west, and 

 our party was disposed to oblige the Professor by re- 

 turning along the northern border. Southward two 

 hundred miles was the Arkansas, flowing near the 

 southern limit of the buffalo region. While there 

 were some reasons why we desired to visit it, and 

 though it w^as, perhaps, equally rich in game, it 

 promised nothing of greater interest, upon the whole, 

 than the district we now proposed traversing. But 

 of this more in the next chapter. 



Toward evening came our introduction to what 

 we were pleased to imagine was a beauty of the past, 



