108 TRAPPING IN IOWA 1865-6 
upona butte for hours,peering through the blue trying to 
locate the familiar hills within whose encompassed vale 
lived and breathed one dearer than all else to the lonely 
and discouraged trapper as he now began to think of 
the time wasted and the meagre return the outlay had 
brought him. Relief came once again with Crusoe and 
his philosophy expressed :— 
‘*Oh solitude where are charms 
That sages have seen in thy face? 
Better dwell in the midst of alarms 
Than reign in this horrible place.” — 
and suiting action to the word, I raised my belongings 
in a bundle and was soon heading for Cherokee stage 
station and thence by coach down the Little Sioux Val- 
ley to the broad bottom lands of the Missouri. 
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