• PERSEVERANCE OF THE GUIDES. 75 



success. We then packed our wagons and started on towards Fort 

 Arbuckle, crossing the creek below the old village, where it was forty 

 yards wide and ten inches deep, with a rapid current flowing over a bed 

 of gravel. 



Upon the east bank of the creek we passed over a broad and level 

 piece of bottom-land, covered with a dense crop of wild rice, and other 

 rich grasses. We then left the valley in a course north of east, over 

 the ridge dividing Cache from Beaver creek, until we reached a branch 

 of the latter, upon which we encamped. The timber here is large and 

 abundant ; the water fresh, but standing in pools ; and the soil good. 

 I have crossed this same stream at four different places below here, and 

 have invariably found the soil of a similar character and the timber large, 

 consisting of pecan, elm, hackberry, oak, cotton-wood, and walnut, and 

 generally confined to the borders of the stream. 



Our most excellent and indefatigable hunter, John Bushman, re- 

 turned this evening with the lost mule, having tracked him for twenty 

 miles from where he left us. He had also killed a buffalo during the 

 day, and brought us a piece of the hump. He states that from the 

 time the mule left us until he overtook him he had continued to travel, 

 without stopping, directly to the north, and at right-angles to the 

 course we had been pursuing. I inquired of him if he did not be- 

 come almost discouraged before he came up with the animal. He said 

 no ; that I had ordered him not to return without him, and that he 

 should have been on the track yet if he had not overtaken him. I have 

 no doubt such would have been the case, for he is a man of eminently 

 determinate and resolute character, with great powers of endurance, and 

 a most acute and vigilant observer, accompanied by prominent organs 

 of locality and sound judgment. These traits of character, with the 

 abundant experience he has had upon the plains, make him one of the 

 very best guides I have ever met with. He never sees a place once 

 without instantly recognising it on seeing it the second time, notwith- 

 standing he may approach it from a different direction ; and the very 

 moment he takes a glance over a district of country he has never seen 

 before, he will almost invariably point out the particular localities (if 

 there are any such) where water can be found, when to others there 

 seems to be nothing to indicate it. Such qualifications render the ser- 

 vices of these people highly important, and almost indispensable in a 

 tour upon the prairies. 



An incident which was related to me as occurring with one of these 

 guides a few years since, forcibly illustrates their character. The officer 

 having charge of the party to which he was attached, sent him out to 



