Chap. IV. INDIAN SIGNAL STATION. 243 
golden sunflowers invested the foreground with the most 
brilliant colours. 
We encamped for the night, and reached the caravan 
early the next morning, continuing our journey with it. 
A brilliant sky rested over the wide-spreading plain 
before us, which was still broken here and there, park-like, 
by groups of trees and strips of wood. Upon an elevation 
near the road stood three pyramids of stones, roughly piled 
one upon another, the highest twelve or fifteen feet high. I 
could learn nothing of their origin. Later on I saw, in 
various places in the prairie, similar but rougher heaps of 
stones. Sometimes green boughs stuck between the stones, 
which led me to infer that these were signals of communi- 
tion agreed upon by the Indians. For the greater part of 
the day I rode in advance of the caravan. The first 
prairie-fowls showed themselves, and the pursuit of these, 
with the examination of some plants quite new to me, 
filled all the time until we reached our night-quarters. 
This point went by the name of the " Lone Elm Tree." 
An elm had stood here ; but some travellers, to whom 
a cup of warm coffee gave greater pleasure than the sight 
of a tree in the steppes, had cut it down not long before we 
passed : the barbarous act was already perpetrated, and we 
might, therefore, use the pieces of wood lying about for our 
camp-fire. 
Our way led us through the strip of land between the 
Kansas and Osage rivers, rising gradually, with beautiful 
views, on to the neighbouring country. Towards the 
I south the ground sloped gradually down into valleys, and 
iwas, on the whole, more flat ; but towards the north, the 
descents into the valleys were steep and precipitous. Far 
away in both directions were to be seen rivulets, bordered 
|with trees, winding along through the meadows. 
R 2 
