by still deepening layers, covered with a thick crust, scarcely strong enough to bear our
weight, but quite sufficient to wrench and jar us at every step, and make our advance threefold tiresome.
The cold was so intense, we were forced to walk to keep from freezing. Our difficulties thickened the farther we progressed. Night closed in upon us, and we could no longer distinguish our course. Yet we kept on, in hopes of reaching some creek or spring where we might await the coming day.
Slowly, onward, —plunge, plunge, at every step; —now prostrate at full length upon the hard crust, and then again staggering in resistless mimicry of drunken men.
The chill winds sweeping over the dreary expanse pierced us through at each whiff, and seemed to penetrate every nerve, and joint, and muscle, as if to transform our hearts' blood into icicles. But still it was plunge, plunge along; onward, plunge, fall; but yet onward! There is no stopping place here, —'tis push on or die!
Thus, travelling for three or four hours, not knowing whither, we came finally to the leeward of a high hill. The agreeable change produced by the absence of wind, called forth a hearty response. "Camp, ho," was echoed upon all sides. But here was no water for ourselves or our animals. We must yet go on. Still we lingered — loath to leave the favored spot. The Indian, who had been absent for a brief space, now came up, shouting:
"Mine, washtasta!" (Water, very good!)
"Tarkoo mine?" asked the trader. (What water?)
"Mine-loosa. Tunga warkpollo." (Running-water. A large creek.)
It proved L'eau-qui-court, the stream upon which we had intended to pass the night.
Pushing on, a few moments brought us to its banks, in a deep valley covered with snow. A fire was then promptly built from a small quantity of wood we had the precaution to take with us from Rawhide, and all hands were soon as comfortably conditioned as circumstances would admit.
A hearty supper served to appease the appetites so keenly sharpened by a toilsome journey of thirty miles, occupying from sunrise till ten o'clock at night. This over, each one cleared for himself a place upon the frozen ground, and, spreading down his bed, quickly forgot his cares and sufferings in the welcome embrace of sleep.
L'eau-qui-court, or Running-water, heads in a small lake under the base of the first range of Black Hills, and, following an easternly course, empties into the Missouri, about one hundred and fifty or two hundred miles above Council Bluff.
It derives its name from the rapidity of its current, which rolls over a pebbly bed with great velocity.
At this place it is narrow and deep, with steep banks, and not a stick of timber is to be found on it, above or below, for twenty miles. At the lake where it heads, there is an abundance of timber; large groves of cottonwood are also found at some distance below our present camp.
The intermediate country, from Rawhide, is a cold and cheerless expanse almost at all seasons of the year. From the commencement of fall to the very close of spring, it is subject to frost and snow; —for what cause,
