The Arkansas advocate., 1835-06-19
MISCELLANY. Y :.
N X R R A TIVE
OF A JOURNEY IN THE PRAIRIE.
BYALBERT PIKE

OF A JOURNEY IN THE PRAIRIE.
 BY
 His breast was armed gans Fate his wants were few Peril he sought not, but neer shrank meet; The scene savage, but the new; This made the ceasetess tol of travel sweet,
 Beat hack keen winters cold and welcomed summers
 heat.-BYRoN.
 Concluded.
 10.-Left the camp in company with the Osages, and travelled in south-e east direc- tion about twelve miles, and encamped again with them.
 Il.-This morning, left the Osages. They had solicited us strongly to go on with them, and we would have been wise had we done so. Lewis, Irwin and Gillet exchanged their mules for horses this morning, but Ish kept his mule, Lewis and Irwin obtained young and unbroken wild horses, tor, as the hunters call them, mestaags) and GilIet got an old worn-out hack. At parting, the chief presented us with an abundance of good meat: aud in return, we gave him red and gaudy Mex ican blanket; and after lingering behind his men. and shaking hands with us, he
 1s
 on ihis tinle lill the night of the thir- 1eenths our route lay through the Cross Tiubers and the Nashita Hills; and on that afternoon, we turned down from the hills fa the river. Crossed it and eneamped on tte nafsA bank of ii. These three days were the wofst eaH q lite route. The gravel wore our feet to the quich, slsss through our moecasins, and the bushes and briers offered almost insarmountable ob- stacles to our progress. Probably in these three days, we travelled fifty miles, and gained, upon a straight line, thirty.
 14.-Left the Washlta and struck out from fl. From this day til the twentieth. we travelled nearly an easterly course sometimes in burnt prairie. On the 18th, we had snow-storm. We had crossed two running creeks about twenty yards wide, besides several small ones-all branches of Blue. On the twentieth in the morning, we came upon a Delaware, who was hunting deer He conducted us part of the way to his camp, and then left us to hunt deer while, as he said but we never found his camp. l do not SUD- pose that he intended us 10 do so. We ob- tained a small piece of tobacco of him, however, of which we had had none for six or seven days. Both of these days (the nineteenth and twentieth, we were without meat, not even mouthiu
 2l.-This day, at noon, killed small deer, and ate ravenously-eating the whole animal except one ham and oue shoulder From this day to the 23d, we kept nearly the same course, (east and about noon of the 23d, we struck Blue, and kept down it, as we did also on the Wenty-foufth, till, about noon, we found ourselves in the bot tom of Red River, at the mouth of Blue. Here we encamped, and laid by this day and the next, 25h. From the crossing of the Wdshita to the mouth of Blue, we had travelled, believe, nearly one hundred and sixty miles, perhaps more. The distance, upon straight line, Is not more than one hundred and twenty miles,
 On the l4th, we killed four old bulls.-- They were the last we saw the same day we killed and ate an opossum.
 On the 22d, Gillet killed his horse, and became my companion on foot. During these last days, the prairie had been on fira all around us; and l assure the reader that there IS not the least danger of a person getting caught and burnt uP by it. 1 can butwalk it two to one, even in good wind and think could save myself by running through the fire. The most serious caam- lty which bad befalen me of late, was the loss of my last knife, which left behind me on the 23d; and of course had fair chance to discover the true value of fingers in the woods.
 The country was, as before, at times prairie, covered with long grass or, where the fire had been, hard, black and dry.-At times we passed through spots of oak tim Der, and now and then a small patch of bri- CTS and scrub oak. The water was now all sweet and clear. and there was an abun- dance of 1t.
 On the 25th, we lay by in the bottom of Red River, and Lewis killed all old bear and cub. Some turkeys, also, were un- foosted by some of us, and we could have killed plenty of deer had we wished. = There can be no better place for hunting than this bottom but for briers and vines, take 1t to be the worst place on earth.
 From this day until the 28, we had eve- " variety of travelling, except that which was pleasant and easy. We crossed Blue on the morning of the 18th, and then took nearly north course. That night felIed tree about foot in diameter, with tom- ahawk, for the sake of grapes. On the