human
off to the southwest, seemed near at hand, though more than twenty miles away. The ground was baked hard, with a thin covering of dry-grass, except in the occasional buffalo-wallows; and altogether our horses seemed to enjoy the gallop quite as much as we did ourselves. There was just a spice of danger in the ride, too, as Indians were reported prowling about, but none appeared. We left the Platte with its bluffs and cañons behind us, and out into the boundless Plains we rode, on and on, and only drew rein when we discovered that we had lost our reckoning, and were without a compass. The person charged with providing this had forgotten it, and suddenly we found ourselves at sea, without guide or headland. Fortunately we had the well-worn buffalo-trails, that there run almost due north and south--the old paths over which they formerly went to and from the Platte for water--and following up one of these, after an hour or two, we found ourselves in sight of the river again. These