All being arranged, the party started; but
they had not gone far before serious illness
compelled Colonel Fremont to return to
Westport. His little company was requested
to march on to the place where they were to
join the Delawares, near the principal town
of the Pottawatomies, and there encamp.
They had been two days in this camp when
word came from their leader that increasing
illness forced him to go to St. Louis for
medical attendance, and that they had better
proceed as far as Smoky Hills, and encamp
on the saline fork of the Kansas river, where
there were plenty of buffaloes, and where he
hoped to rejoin them in about a fortnight.
So the camp was moved, and the expedition
lived for a few weeks the gay life of a prairie
party. Game was abundant. The Indians
brought in buffalo, antelope, and deer; the
white gunners bagged wild turkeys, ducks,
rabbits, and prairie hens. The cook dressed
buffalo steaks and haunches of venison, made
olla podridas, and served out, at the will of a
quartermaster bent upon enjoyment, coffee,
tea, and sugar, three or four times a-day. The
white men smoked all their cigars; the
Delawares puffed at tobacco and red sumach in
their pipes, which were generally tomahawks
with a bore in the handle and a bowl at the
butt end, serving the turn of peace or war;
handy instruments for every occasion.

The company was, in fact, in the absence of
the Colonel, eating up its stores. The artist
and the topographical engineer went out into
the woods one day with a Delaware, and saw
some luscious grapes hanging in a garland
between two tree-tops. The grapes were
tempting; the Delaware waited to see what
his white brethren would do; they began
each of them to climb a tree to gather bunches.
When they were half-way up, the Delaware
below pulled the whole vine down by an
attack upon its roots, and was filling his dress
with the best clusters when his friends came
down to earth again. To gather a few grapes
the Indians recklessly destroyed a vine; and
for the sake of a few weeks' pleasure, civilised
and savage travellers were eating up the store
that was meant for their sustenance and
comfort in the future days of peril.

The quarter-master having discovered that
the commissariat was empty, sent two of the
Indians to Fort Riley for more supplies.
The expedition had been delayed for a month
by the illness of its chief; the last day of
October was at hand. Still Colonel Fremont
had not arrived in the camp which was at
that time encircled by a prairie fire. The
camp itself was apparently protected by its
situation, for it had the Kansas River on one
side, Solomon's Fork on another, Salt Creek
on another, and a large belt of wood distant
about four miles, on the fourth. Colonel
Fremont was expected daily, and the prairie
was on fire upon the other side of the belt of
wood, through which he would have to pass.
The fire on the north side had burnt up to
the water's edge; fire seemed to bound the
whole horizon. On the morning of the last
day of October, the magnificent woods had
become a forest of charred trunks. The fire
had increased. It was not easy to decide
whither to go, if the camp were moved;
moreover it might be difficult for Fremont to find
his men if they once quitted the appointed
place of rendezvous. After breakfast, however,
there was a loud whoop from a Delaware
who first espied the welcome Colonel galloping
through fire in the direction of the camp.
He had with him his Indian guide, his cook,
and an immense man on an immense mule,
his doctor, who had come to see him safely
started on his onward journey. Preparation
was at once made for setting forward. The
season was advanced. There would be game
to live upon until Bent's Fort was reached,
and there the expedition might be, as to all
essential things, refitted. At midnight the
fire crossed the Kansas River, and on the next
day escape had to be made through the
blazing grass. It was a scamper through fire of
not more than a hundred feet, for the grass
kindles quickly, and as quickly burns into
dead cinder, so that among prairie grass the
sea of fire is not a wide one through which
one must dash to the black waste of ashes on
tlie other side.

Through the ordeal of fire, this sudden
dash led to the ordeal of frost. The next
night's encampment was on the dry bed of a
creek, where the cold was so intense that
about an hour after the midnight watch had
been relieved, one of the men on horse-guard
left his duty, and came in to warm himself.
Colonel Fremont's maxim of travel through
the wilds is that the price of safety is eternal
vigilance. The horse-guard had scarcely
warmed his finger-tips before the watchful
Colonel appeared by the camp-fire, accosted
the delinquent and asked whether he had
been relieved. The man pleaded frost as his
apology for coming in, was seriously lectured,
and expected to warm himself by walking
through the next day's travel. Another man
was sent out to occupy the vacated post.
Morning brought with it justification of the
Colonel's earnestness, five of the animals were
missing, and as white men would pretty
surely perish if left in the prairie, six hundred
miles from the frontier of civilised life in the
midst of hostile Indians, without mules and
horses, it was necessary to spend several days
in following the track of the Chegenne
Indians, who were declared by the Delawares
to be the thieves. The animals were discovered
at last, and with them some of the thieves,
who confessed that they had watched the
camp for an opportunity to run off with the
horses, but had found them guarded until
one man left his watch to warm himself by
the camp-fire, during which time they stole
five, and if they had had an hour left to
them they would have stolen many more.
They even pointed out the man to whose