twelve oxen. The master-wagoner is admiral of this little land fleet: he has control of twenty-six captains and 312 oxen. At a distance, the white awnings of the wagons have the effect of a fleet of vessels with all canvas spread.
On leaving Leavenworth the drivers look well enough, being all in new clothes, but as they advance into the plains their good clothes become travel-stained and torn, and at last are converted into rags. The captains have hardly proceeded 200 miles, before their trail is marked with rags, scattered and flying along the route. You may often remark also on the various camping grounds, even as far as the Rocky Mountains, and beyond, the wrecks of wagons and the skeletons of oxen, but especially the remains of the wardrobe of the traveler: legs of pantaloons and drawers, a shirt-bosom, the back or the arm of a flannel vest, stockings out at toe and heel, crownless hats, and shoes worn through in the soles or uppers, are strewed along the route. These deserted camps are also marked by packs of cards strewed round among broken jars and bottles; here you see a gridiron, a coffee-pot or a tin bowl; there a cooking-stove and the fragments of a shaving-dish, all worn out and cast aside.
The poor Indians regard these signs of encroaching civilization with an unquiet eye as they pass them on their way. These rags and refuse are to them the harbingers of the approach of a dismal future for themselves; they announce to them that the plains and forests over which they roam in the chase, their beautiful lakes and rivers swarming with fish, and the repair of numerous aquatic birds; the hearth which witnessed their birth, and the soil which covers the ashes of their fathers - all, in fine, that is most dear to them -are about to pass into the hands of the rapacious white man: and they, poor mortals, accustomed to roam at large and over a vast space, free like the birds of the air, will be inclosed in narrow reserves, far from their cherished hunting grounds and fine fisheries, far from their fields of roots and fruits; or driven back into the mountains or to unknown shores. It is not surprising, then, that the savage seeks some