132 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 
Yes, I was awake, as wide awake as a pool of water un- 
der each arm, each knee, and every protuberant portion 
of the figure, could make me. With an anathema against 
weather, country, and outdoor life, I sprang up, and will- 
ingly busied myself in raking together the fragments of. 
what had been a fire; long and tedious were the efforts to 
coax a blaze, but at length the reward of patience was vouch- 
safed, and, in spite of the almost insurmountable obstacles, 
a sufficient heat was obtained by which to cook the débris 
of last night’s supper, the sole remnants of provisions the 
larder could boast of. 
At the time to which I allude we were on a branch or 
small fork that flowed from the south into the Pawnee Riv- 
er. I and my companions had come from the westward, 
and had experienced as hard a time as it is possible to con- 
ceive; we had been about two weeks together, and although 
I am doubtful of the propriety of picking up strange ac- 
quaintances when beyond civilization, those squeamish ideas 
never enter the heads of Western habitués; a white man 
is always a friend until he proves himself to be otherwise, 
and then it is your own lookout that he does not get the 
upper hand. Wild life makes you wonderfully wide awake, 
and although an apparent bonhomie may lay on the sur- 
face, a constant guarded caution should never be neglected. 
My new pals, however, were really good fellows, a little ec- 
centric, for each was in the habit of picking his teeth with 
his bowie-knife; but they were honest, plucky, and endur. 
ing, ready to face whatever emergency occurred, and pret- 
ty certain to get out of it if a bold hand and quick eye 
could be of avail. . Breakfast ! what a misnomer for a few 
mouthfuls of half-charred, half-cooked pieces of tough 
venison! what a contrast with one of our home hunting- 
feeds that bear the same sobriquet ; still I doubt much 
whether patés de fois gras, game-pies, and spiced round 
