492 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



mutually aud repeatedly, until he at length got so as to feel strength enough to ride, 

 and resolution enough to swear that he would take leave of that deadly spot and 

 seek restoration and health in a cooler and more congenial latitude. So ho had his 

 horse brought up one morning whilst he was so weak that he could scarcely mount 

 upon his back, and with his servant, a small negro boy, packed on another, he steered 

 off upon the prairies towards Fort Leavenworth, five hundred miles to the north, 

 where his company had long since marched. 



MR. CATLIN STARTS ON A HORSEBACK JOURNEY OF 500 MILES. 



I remained a week or two longer, envying the captain the good luck to escape from 

 that dangerous ground ; and after I had gained strength sufficient to warrant it, I 

 made preparations to take informal leave and wend ray way also over the prairies to 

 the Missouri, a distance of five hundred miles, and most of the way a solitary wilder- 

 ness. For this purpose I had my horse " Charley" brought up from his pasture where 

 he had been in good keeping during my illness, and got so fat as to form almost an 

 objectionable contrast to his master, with whom he was to embark on a long and 

 tedious journey again over the vast and almost boundless prairies. 



I had, like the captain, grown into such a dread of tbat place from the scenes of 

 death that were and had been visited upon it, tbat I resolved to be off as soon as I 

 had strength to get onto my horse and balance myself upon his back. For this pur- 

 pose I packed up my canvass and brushes and other luggage, and sent them down 

 the river to the Mississippi to be forwarded by steamer to meet me at Saint Louis. 

 So one fine" morning Charley was brought up and saddled, and a bear-skin and a 

 buffalo robe being spread upon his saddle and a coffee-pot and tin cup tied to it also — 

 with a few pounds of hard biscuit in my portmanteau — with my fowling-piece in ray 

 hand and my pistols in my belt — with my sketch-book slung on my back and a small 

 pocket compass in my pocket, I took leave of Fort Gibson, even against the advice of 

 my surgeon and all the officers of the garrison, who gathered around me to bid me 

 farewell. No argument could contend with the fixed resolve in my own mind, that 

 if I could get out upon the prairies and moving continually to the northward I should 

 daily gain strength, and save myself possibly from the jaws of that voracious burial 

 ground that laid in front of my room, where I had for months laid and imagined ray- 

 self going with other poor fellows whose mournful dirges were played under my 

 window from day to day. No one can imagine what was the dread I felt for that 

 place, nor the pleasure which was extatic when Charley was trembling under me, and 

 I turned him around on the top of a prairie bluff at a mile distance to take the last 

 look upon it, and thank God, as I did audibly, that I was not to be buried within its 

 inclosure. I said to myself that "to die on the prairie and be devoured by wolves, 

 or to fall in combat and be scalped by an Indian, would be far more acceptable than 

 the lingering death that would consign me to the jaws of that insatiable grave," for 

 which, in the fever and weakness of my mind, I had contracted so destructive a ter- 

 ror. — Pages 87, 88, vol. 2, Catlin's Eight Years. 



(Mr. Catlin's Itinerary, with incidents, is given with No. 469 herein.) 

 Mr. Catlin continues the itinerary of his journey with "Charley": 



MR. CATLIN'S MUSINGS IN CAMP. 



On my return to my encampment, after cleaning Charley (see No. 469), I laid down 

 upon my back, looked awhile into the blue heavens that were over me, with their 

 pure and milk-white clouds that were passing — with the sun just setting in the west, 

 and the silver moon rising in the east — and renewed the impressions of my own insig- 

 nificance's I contemplated the incomprehensible mechanism of that wonderful clock 

 whose time is infallible and whose motion is eternity ! I trembled at last at the 

 dangerous expanse of my thoughts, and turned them again and my eyes upon the 



