CHAPTER VIII. 
GENERAL DISCOMFORT — MURDER OF DOW. 
Oct. 14 th. — A beautiful day. The air is hazy from the many 
fires on the prairie, which are burning day and night. They are 
a grand and sublime sight when spreading over a large tract, the 
tall grass waving with every breeze, now fiercely blazing^ and now 
with graceful undulating motion, looking indeed like a “ sea of 
flame,” when the fiery billows surge and dash fearfully ; or when 
the winds are still, like an unruffled, quiet burning lake. Doctor 
went to Wakarusa again to visit some sick friends. Word had 
been sent us of a new road, and we attempted to find it. After 
leaving the old road and riding some distance across the prairie, 
where there was no track, and through fields partly fenced, we 
came to a line of timber, where all our directions failed, and the 
straight way seemed wholly lost. As we were halting to decide 
upon our course, a woman came toward us from a little cabin not 
far off. She directed us to a little foot-path through the timber, 
and we followed it, turning this way and that to avoid crushing 
the wheels against the trees, and at every moment bending low to 
save our heads from striking the huge branches. After a quarter 
of a mile of such travelling, we were at the crossing. And such 
a crossing ! If the old crossing was poor, this was so in a super¬ 
lative sense, so very steep and abrupt. We went into the water 
with a lurch, almost tearing the body of the carriage from the 
wheels. A man came to the opposite bank, which was some twelve 
feet high, and not lacking much of being perpendicular, and by 
motions, and a few words we could hear, made us understand that 
we must keep down the river a little further, in the attempt to 
cross. Coming to the other shore, there was a little bank about 
