132 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



Yes, I was awake, as wide awake as a pool of water un- 

 der each arm, each knee, and every protuberant portion 

 of the figure, could make me. With an anathema against 

 weather, country, and outdoor life, I sprang up, and will- 

 ingly busied myself in raking together the fragments of 

 what had been a fire; long and tedious were the efforts to 

 coax a blaze, but at length the reward of patience was vouch- 

 safed, and, in spite of the almost insurmountable obstacles, 

 a sufficient heat was obtained by which to cook the debris 

 of last night's supper, the sole remnants of provisions the 

 larder could boast of. 



At the time to which I allude we were on a branch or 

 small fork that flowed from the south into the Pawnee Riv- 

 er. I and my companions had come from the westward, 

 ,and had experienced as hard a time as it is possible to con- 

 ceive; we had been about two weeks together, and although 

 I am doubtful of the propriety of picking up strange ac- 

 quaintances when beyond civilization, those squeamish ideas 

 never enter the heads of Western habitues a white man 

 is always a friend until he proves himself to be otherwise, 

 and then it is your own lookout that he does not get the 

 upper hand. Wild life makes you wonderfully wide awake, 

 and although an apparent bonhomie may lay on the sur- 

 face, a constant guarded caution should never be neglected. 

 My new pals, however, were really good fellows, a little ec- 

 centric, for each was in the habit of picking his teeth with 

 his bowie-knife ; but they were honest, plucky, and endur- 

 ing, ready to face whatever emergency occurred, and pret- 

 ty certain to get out of it if a bold hand and quick eye 

 could be of avail. Breakfast ! what a misnomer for a few 

 mouthfuls of half - charred, half -cooked pieces of tough 

 venison ! what a contrast with one of our home hunting- 

 feeds that bear the same sobriquet; still I doubt much 

 whether pates de fois gras, game-pies, and spiced round 



