»* 



93 CAPTAIN Sublette's party. 



in their company at all competent to guide 

 them on the route. They had some twenty- 

 odd wagons, and about eighty men. There 

 bemg a plain track to the Arkansas river, they 

 did very well tlius far ; but from thence to 

 the Cimarron, not a single trail was to be 

 lound, save the innumerable buffalo paths, 

 with which these plains are furrowed, and 

 which are exceedmgly perplexing to the be- 

 wildered prairie traveUer. In a great many 

 places which I have observed, they have all 

 tlie appearance of immense highways, over 

 which entire armies would seem to have fre- 

 quently passed. They generaUy lead from 

 one watering place to another ; but as these 

 reservoirs very often turn out to be dry, the 

 thirsty traveUer who foUows them m search of 

 ^ w5 IS ^^^^^ to constant disappointment. 



When Capt. Sublette's paiiy entered this 

 and plain, it was parched with drought ; and 

 they were doomed to wander about for seve- 

 ral days, with aU the horrors of a death from 

 Uiu-st staring them continually in the face. 

 In this perilous situation, Capt. Smith resolved 

 at last to pursue one of these seductive buffalo 

 paths, m hopes it might lead to the mar^n 

 ot some stream or pond. He „^. ^^, „.^..v. , 

 for besides the temerity which desperation 

 always mspures, he had ever been a stranger 

 to tear ; indeed, he was one of the most un- 

 daunted spirits that had ever traversed the 

 itocky Mountams ; and if but one-hah" of 



what has been told of him be true.— of his 



n 



bold enterprises— his perUous wanderin 



O 



