—147— 
animal usually recovers after a while, but I could not 
wait for that. I had to abandon this worthy animal 
which had carried me some thousands of miles. Some 
weeks before we had abandoned two other horses in 
the same way. However, one of my companions lent 
me another horse. The country gradually became 
more familiar to us. On October 13th we rested at 
noon at the same place as after our departure from 
Sapling Grove. Toward night we camped in the vi- 
cinity of Sapling Grove. As yet we had seen neither 
farms nor human beings, but the cow bells which we 
heard at evening near us, made sweetest music for us. 
The next morning we again passed the farms of the 
Shawnees to our starting point, Westport. Before 
entering the village we fired a salute from all our 
guns, which immediately brought out our old ac- 
quaintances. 
We had passed nearly six months in the wilderness. 
In that time we had covered under daily hardships 
about three thousand miles, had slept on the bare 
ground in all kinds of weather, and had lived almost 
exclusively on meat. Nevertheless, we all fairly over- 
flowed with health, while the many sallow fever faces 
we here met sufficiently informed us that the sum- 
mer had been very sickly. In Westport, we rested 
for a while. All, even the commonest, pleasures of 
civilized life had a double charm for us. After eight 
days I rode with three more of my traveling com- 
panions three hundred miles further, to St. Louis, 
where we made our return on the last day of October. 
Return to 
the 
Boundary ot 
Missouri 
