250 HAPPY ESCAPE — FRAPPE'S CREEK. 



his horse, a fine roan, lying d'ead by liis side. The scene was soon 

 explained. When starting after the buffalo, Mr. G. had handed 

 his gun to one of the party, and, drawing a revolver from his 

 holster, set off in pursuit. In crossing a narrow ravine his horse 

 had stumbled and nearly fallen : the nervous contraction of the fin- 

 gers caused by the endeavour to save himself had occasioned the 

 discharge of the pistol, the ball of which, passing directly through 

 the neck of the horse, had killed him instantly ; and his rider was 

 hurled with great violence to the ground. I was much relieved to 

 find that no bones were broken, and that, with the exception of 

 some severe scratches, and a violent jar of the system, nothing 

 very serious had happened. It was a narrow escape, however ; 

 for a -broken bone, so far from surgical aid, would have proved no 

 light matter. After the detention of an hour, Lieutenant G. was 

 mounted upon another horse, and accompanied the train as usual, 

 his ambition for running buffaloes entirely satisfied. 



A meridian altitude of the sun gave for latitude 41° 38' 38'^6. 

 Laramie Peak bearing north 29° 30' east, mag. The afternoon's 

 march was over a beautiful rolling country, lying at the foot of 

 the Medicine-bow Mountains, whence issued several small streams, 

 emerging from narrow canons, their sides clothed with cotton- 

 wood, aspen, and cedars — their windings through the plains to the 

 northward being distinctly traceable by the rich belts of green 

 that clothed their banks. The soil was sandy, and profusely 

 covered with small fragments of white, smoky, and rose quartz, 

 very pure, and in many cases nearly translucent, which had been 

 washed down from the mountains. We made but one march to- 

 day, and, crossing the east fork of the Medicine Bow, encamped 

 three miles below, upon the banks of Frappe's Creek, one of its 

 tributaries. The east fork, where we crossed it, is about forty 

 feet wide and one foot deep, flowing with a rapid current and pure 

 limpid water over a pebbly bed. The bottom of this pretty little 

 stream is about a mile wide, well covered with grass, and tolerably 

 wooded with cotton-woods and aspens. The mountain-sides on our 

 right have been well clothed with fir and pine. Prappe's Creek is 

 so called from the fact of Mr. Frappe having been some years 

 since robbed, at the mouth of this stream, of a band of sixty 

 horses, by a party of Aricarrees. Day's march, seventeen miles. 

 Lat. 41° 33' 6". Long. 106° 15' 58". 



Thursday, September 26. — Morning clear. Ther. at sunrise, 

 48°. A high wind from the south-west. To-day we entered the 



