184 NOTES TAKEN. 
with dry coarse grass between, the whole then set fire too, 
when a few minutes deprives the plant of its thorny prickles, 
and it is then eaten with great avidity by stock; an 
excellent substitute in a country where grass is so scarce. 
Immense flocks of doves covered the plain, attracted by 
the seeds of the sunflowers, and we shot numbers for our mess 
table, . ; 
. August 13th_—At an early hour we reached the Clear Fork, 
which, at the crossing, was about thirty yards wide, running 
through perpendicular rocky banks over a rocky bed, the 
water beautifully clear and the valley of the Clear Fork about 
a mile wide. 
To our surprise, on ascending the opposite bank, the road 
wound through a large field of oats on one side and corn on 
the other, and in the distance, we saw a house, the first we 
had seen for near three months—it carried us back to home 
and friends, In this solitary spot, Colonel Stem, late Indian 
agent, established this rancho, about three years since. The 
corn and oats were put in with the labour of eight men, and 
by simply turning over a furrow with the plough, no necessity 
for harrowing or pulverizing. The crop sold, in the ground, 
for forty-five “hundred dollars, a proof of the fertility of the 
soil, . 
The Colonel, on his return from his rancho in February, 
‘1854, in company with a friend, was murdered by a wandering 
party of Kickapoos; they shot at them, but missing, clubbed ; 
their rifles and beat them to death, then stealing what was 
