THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 485 



On one of these hard day's march, and just at night, whilst we were looking out 

 for water and a suitable place to encamp, Joe and I galloped off a mil e or two to the 

 right of the regiment, to a point of timber, to look for water, where we found a small 

 and sunken stagnant pool ; and as our horses plunged their feet into it to drink, we 

 saw, to our great surprise, a number of frogs hopping across its surface as our horses 

 started them from the shore ! Several of them stopped in the middle of the pool, 

 sitting quite "high and dry" on the surface of the water; and when we approached 

 them nearer or jostled them they made a leap into the air, and coming down head 

 foremost, went under the water and secreted themselves at the bottom. Here was a 

 subject for Joe in his own line ! frogs with horns, and frogs with webbed feet, that 

 could hop about and sit upon the surface of the water ! We rode around the pool and 

 drove a number of them into it, and fearing that it would be useless to try to get one 

 of them that evening, we rode back to the encampment, exulting very much in the 

 curious discovery we had made for the naturalists, and by relating to some of the 

 officers what we had seen got excessively laughed at for our wonderful discovery ! 

 Nevertheless Joe and I could not disbelieve what we had seen so distinctly " with our 

 own eyes," and we took to ourselves (or, in other words, I acquiesced in Joe's taking 

 to himself, as it was so peculiarly in his line) the most unequivocal satisfaction in the 

 curious and undoubted discovery of this new variety, and we made our arrange- 

 ments to ride back to the spot before "bugle call" in the morning, and by a thorough 

 effort to obtain a specimen or two of the web-footed frogs for Joe's pocket, to be by 

 him introduced to the consideration of the knowing ones in the East. Well, our 

 horses were saddled at an early hour, and Joe and I were soon on the spot — and hje 

 with a handkerchief at the end of a little pole, with which he had made a sort of 

 scoop-net, soon dipped one up as it was hopping along on the surface of the water 

 and making unsuccessful efforts to dive through its surface. On examining its feet we 

 found, to ourvery great surprise, that we had taken a great deal of pains to entrap 

 an old and familiar little acquaintance of our boyhood, but, somewhat like ourselves, 

 unfortunately, from dire necessity driven to a loathsome pool, where the water was so 

 foul and slimy that it could hop and dance about its surface with dry feet, and where 

 it oftentimes found difficulty in diving through the surface to hide itself at the bot- 

 tom. 



I laughed a great deal at poor Joe's most cruel expense , and we amused ourselves a 

 few minutes about this filthy and curious pool, and rode back to the encampment. 

 We found by taking the water up in the hollow of the hand, and dipping the finger 

 in it, and drawing it over the side, thus conducting a little of it out, it was so slimy 

 that the whole would run over the side of the hand in a moment! 



DEATH OF GENERAL LEAVENWORTH AND OTHER OFFICERS. 



Since writing the above an express has arrived from the encampment, which we 

 left at the mouth of False Washita, with the melancholy tidings of the death of Gen- 

 eral Leavenworth, Lieutenant McClure, and ten or fifteen of the men left at that 

 place. [See No. 345.] This has cast a gloom over our little encampment here, and 

 seems to be received as a fatal foreboding by those who are sick with the same dis- 

 ease, and many of them, poor fellows, with scarce a hope left now for their recovery. 



It seems that the general had moved on our trail a few days after we left the Wash- 

 ita, to the Cross Timbers, a distance of fifty or sixty miles, where his disease at last 

 terminated his existence, and I am inclined to think, as I before mentioned, in con- 

 sequence of the injury he sustained in a fall from his horse when running a buffalo 

 calf. My reason for believing this is, that I rode and ate with him every day after 

 the hour of his fall, and from that moment I was quite sure that I saw a different 

 expression in his face from that which he naturally wore ; and when riding by the 

 side of him two or three days after his fall, I observed to him, " General, you have a 

 very bad cough." "Yes," he replied, " I have killed myself in running that devilish 



