TO THE GREAT SOUTH PASS. 



75 



a large, sandy bluff which arose across the valley, we followed 

 along the dry bed of a creek, and again struck the river. AVe 

 commenced to corral at sunset, but owing to the badness of the 

 roads, and the continual giving out of the oxen, our line of 

 march was broken into straggling fragments. Some of the 

 wagons did not get into camp until after night, and one we 

 were obliged to leave a mile back on the road, on account of 

 all its team having given out. The sky was covered with 

 black clouds which portended a stormy night, and we were 

 surrounded by pitchy darkness. 



The next morning we were awakened by the usual 

 reveille of " Roll out," but their was a suffix appended to it on 

 this occasion, in which the "awakening spirit" said— and lefs 

 track rabbits. I could not discern the pith of the suffix, or 

 else was not influenced by the inducements it held out, and 

 thinking that the tolerable comfort I w^as now experiencing 

 preferable to the pleasure that would accrue from tracking the 

 aforesaid rabbits, which I feared too only existed in imagina- 

 tion, I wrapped the drapery of my couch still closer about 

 me, resolving to not emerge into the outer world yet awhile. 

 A continuation of the reveille, however, at last induced me to 

 " roll out," when, what was my consternation, to see the whole 

 of the surrounding landscape enveloped in snow which was 

 still falling. During the night the rain had turned to snow, 

 and the cotton-woods and their undergrowth of vines and 

 bushes along the river bottom, and the innumerable clumps 

 of wild sage on the surrounding plain, were now surmounted 

 with glittering crowns. 



The road having once more become passable, we made a 

 start at noon on the 10th, and rolling over a good road we camped 

 at sunset on the River Fourche Boisee, two miles above its 

 junction with the Platte. This is a clear running stream, ten 

 yards in width, and has a narrow fringe of cotton-woods along 

 its shores. There being no grass around our camp, we took 



