246 A Century of /Science 



him through it unscathed, and good luck kept him 

 clear of encounters with hostile Indians, in which 

 these qualities might not have sufficed to avert de- 

 struction. It was rare good fortune that kept his 

 party from meeting with an enemy during five 

 months of travel through a dangerous region. 

 Scarcely three weeks after he had reached the con- 

 fines of civilization, the Pawnees and Comanches 

 began a systematized series of hostilities, and " at- 

 tacked . . . every party, large or small, that passed 

 during the next six months." 



During this adventurous experience, says Park- 

 man, " my business was observation, and I was 

 willing to pay dearly for the opportunity of exer- 

 cising it." A heavy price was exacted of him, not 

 by red men, but by that " subtle personage" whom 

 he had tried to take by the horns, and who seems 

 to have resented such presumption. Toward the 

 end of the journey Parkman found himself ill 

 in much the same way as at the beginning, and 

 craved medical advice. It was in mid-September, 

 on a broad meadow in the wild valley of the Ar- 

 kansas, where his party had fallen in with a huge 

 Santa Fe caravan of white-topped wagons, with 

 great droves of mules and horses ; and we may let 

 Parkman tell the story in his own words, in the 

 last of our extracts from his fascinating book. One 



