VIl.
To me thrice welcome then, ye prairies wild!
Midnight, and gloom, and solitude, ye please
My restless fancy! Welcome then your child!
For here's my home. And so, with mind at ease,
I will embrace my mother earth, and court
The soothing power of sleep. The clear blue sky
My canopy, the ground my bed, I lie
Encurtain'd by the pale moon-beams, which sport
Beside my lowly couch, and light the dew
With mimic diamonds' glow—while flowers around
My pillow'd head their willing incense strew,
And the sweet dreaming bird anon doth sound
Some isolated note of melody!
Thus chamber'd here, may not kings envy me?
My return to camp the next day served to quiet the apprehensions that had been experienced on my account during the interim.
This excursion took me some fifteen miles eastward, to the head waters of the Kansas river. The country in that neighborhood wore a barren aspect, and was generally sandy and undulating.
l noticed a kind of mineral substance, of a jetty lustrous appearance, which I took to be black-lead. I also remarked certain indications of gold, but whether this metal actually exists here I am unable to say; yet true it is, the surface affords large quantities of "gold blossom," and it is said also, that gold has been found in these parts.
The region lying upon the head branches of the Kansas river is considered very dangerous, —it being the war-ground of the Pawnees, Caws, Chyennes, Sioux, and Arapahos, —and hence comparatively little is known of its character and resources. It is represented as quite sandy and sterile back from the watercourses, and in many other places but little better than a desert waste. The gold story alluded to in the preceding paragraph came to me from various sources, in the following shape:
Some twenty years since, while the Arapahos were at hostilities with the whites, a war-party of that tribe advanced against the Pawnees, led on by a noted chief, called "Whirlwind." Three only of them had guns, and they soon expended their stock of bullets in shooting small game, there being no buffalo upon the route. Finally, left without any thing to eat, they became discouraged, and a council was held to discuss the expediency of relinquishing the expedition.
Having seated themselves upon a small eminence, the question of return was debated with great earnestness, —a majority being in the affirmative. But the head chief, "Whirlwind," bringing all his eloquence to bear upon the opposite side, at last obtained their consent to proceed.
During the conference, several small pieces of a glittering yellow substance were discovered upon the surface, which proved soft and easily worked into any shape. From these a supply of bullets was procured, and, resuming their course, they soon after met the Pawnees, with
