THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 325 



and torn condition the poor old veteran stood bracing up in the midst of his de« 

 vourers, who had ceased hostilities for a few minutes to enjoy a sort of parley, recov- 

 ering strength and preparing to resume the attack in a few moments again. In this 

 group some were reclining to gain breath, whilst others were sneaking about and 

 licking their chaps in anxiety for a renewal of the attack, and others, less lucky, had 

 been crushed to death by the feet or the horns of the bull. I rode nearer to the pitia- 

 ble object as he stood bleeding and trembling before me, and said to him, "Now is 

 your time, old fellow, and you had better be off." Though blind and nearly destroyed, 

 there seemed evidently to be a recognition of a friend in me, as he straightened up, 

 and, trembling with excitement, dashed off at full speed upon the prairie in a straight 

 line. We turned our horses and resumed our march, and when we had advanced a 

 mile or more we looked back and on our left, where we saw again the ill-fated animal 

 surrounded by his tormentors, to whose insatiable voracity he unquestionably soon 

 fell a victim. 



(See also Nos. 404 to 426, herein, for other buffalo-hunting and sport- 

 ing scenes.) 



469. My Horse Charley and I, at sunrise, near the Neosho, on an extensive prairie, 

 encamping on the grass, my saddle for a pillow, two buffalo skins for my 

 bed, my gun in my arms, a coffee-pot and a tin cup, a fire made of buffalo 

 dung (chips), and Charley, a Camanchee claybank (yellow) mustang pick- 

 eted near me. With him alone I crossed the prairie from Fort Gibson, on the 

 Arkansas, to Saint Louis, 550 miles. Painted in 1834-'35. 

 (Plate No. 184, page 89, vol. 2, Catlin's Eight Years.) 



This horse Mr. Catlin rode during the entire summer of 1834 on his 

 journey with the First Dragoons. (See " Itinerary, 1834.") He left Fort 

 Gibson in October, 1834, for the journey above noted, after a severe 

 illness — a fever. 



So, alone, without other living being with me than my affectionate horse Charley, 

 I turned my face to the north and commenced on my long journey, with confidence 

 full and strong that I should gain strength daily ; and no one can ever know the 

 pleasure of that moment, which placed me alone upon the boundless sea of waving 

 grass over which my proud horse was prancing, and I, with my life in my own hands, 

 commenced to steer my course to the banks of the Missouri. 



For the convalescent rising and escaping from the gloom and horrors of a sick bed, 

 astride of his strong and trembling horse, carrying him fast and safely over green 

 fields spotted and tinted with waving wild flowers, and through the fresh and cool 

 breezes that are rushing about him as he daily shortens the distance that lies between 

 him and his wife and little ones, there is an exquisite pleasure yet to be learned by 

 those who never have felt it. 



Day by day I thus pranced and galloped along the whole way through waving 

 grass and green fields, occasionally dismounting and lying in the grass an hour or so, 

 until the grim shaking and chattering of an ague chill had passed off, and through the 

 nights slept on my bear-skin spread upon the grass, with my saddle for my pillow and 

 my buffalo robe drawn over me for my covering. My horse Charley was picketed 

 near me at the end of his lasso, which gave him room for his grazing, and thus we 

 snored and nodded away the nights, and never were denied the doleful serenades of 

 the gangs of sneaking wolves that were nightly perambulating our little encamp- 

 ment and stationed at a safe distance from us at sunrise in the morning, gazing at us 

 and impatient to pick up the crumbs and bones that were left when we moved away 

 from our feeble fire that had faintly flickered through the night, and in the absence 

 of timber had been made of dried buffalo dung (or chips). (Plate 189, No. 4G9.) 



