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ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN BONNEVILLE.
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CHAPTER III.

Wide prairies—vegetable productions—tabular hills—slabs of sandstone—Nebraska or Platte River—scanty fare—buffalo skulls—wagons turned into boats—herds of buffalo—cliffs resembling castles—The Chimney—Scott's Bluffs—story connected with them—the Bighorn or Ahsahta—its nature and habits—difference between that and the "woolly sheep," or goat of the mountains.

From the middle to the end of May, Captain Bonneville pursued a western course over vast undulating plains, destitute of tree or shrub, rendered miry by occasional rain, and cut up by deep water-courses where they had to dig roads for their wagons down the soft crumbling banks, and to throw bridges across the streams. The weather had attained the summer heat; the thermometer standing about fifty-seven degrees in the morning, early, but rising to about ninety degrees at noon. The incessant breezes, however, which sweep these vast plains, render the heats endurable. Game was scanty, and they had to eke out their scanty fare with wild roots and vegetables, such as the Indian potato, the wild onion, and the prairie tomato, and they met with quantities of "red root," from which the hunters make a very palatable beverage. The only human being that crossed their path was a Kansas warrior, returning from some solitary expedition of bravado or revenge, bearing a Pawnee scalp as a trophy.

The country gradually rose as they proceeded westward, and their route took them over high ridges, commanding wide and beautiful prospects. The vast plain was studded on the west with innumerable hills of conical shape, such as are seen north of the Arkansas River. Those hills have their summits apparently cut off about the same elevation, so as to leave flat surfaces at top. It is conjectured by some that the whole country may originally have been of the altitude of these tabular hills, but through some process of nature may have sunk to its present level; these insulated eminences being protected by broad foundations of solid rock.

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