like the glow of a conflagration; until at length the broad disk of the
moon, blood-red, and vastly magnified by the vapors, rose slowly upon
the darkness, flecked by one or two little clouds, and as the light
poured over the gloomy plain, a fierce and stern howl, close at hand,
seemed to greet it as an unwelcome intruder. There was something
impressive and awful in the place and the hour; for I and the beasts
were all that had consciousness for many a league around.

Some days elapsed, and brought us near the Platte. Two men on horseback
approached us one morning, and we watched them with the curiosity and
interest that, upon the solitude of the plains, such an encounter always
excites. They were evidently whites, from their mode of riding, though,
contrary to the usage of that region, neither of them carried a rifle.

"Fools!" remarked Henry Chatillon, "to ride that way on the prairie;
Pawnee find them--then they catch it!"

Pawnee HAD found them, and they had come very near "catching it";
indeed, nothing saved them from trouble but the approach of our party.
Shaw and I knew one of them; a man named Turner, whom we had seen at
Westport. He and his companion belonged to an emigrant party encamped
a few miles in advance, and had returned to look for some stray oxen,
leaving their rifles, with characteristic rashness or ignorance behind
them. Their neglect had nearly cost them dear; for just before we
came up, half a dozen Indians approached, and seeing them apparently
defenseless, one of the rascals seized the bridle of Turner's fine
horse, and ordered him to dismount. Turner was wholly unarmed; but the
other jerked a little revolving pistol out of his pocket, at which
the Pawnee recoiled; and just then some of our men appearing in the
distance, the whole party whipped their rugged little horses, and made