the Missouri. Finding her wholly uncontrollable, we exchanged her
for another, with which we were furnished by our friend Mr. Boone of
Westport, a grandson of Daniel Boone, the pioneer. This foretaste of
prairie experience was very soon followed by another. Westport was
scarcely out of sight, when we encountered a deep muddy gully, of a
species that afterward became but too familiar to us; and here for the
space of an hour or more the car stuck fast.



CHAPTER II

BREAKING THE ICE


Both Shaw and myself were tolerably inured to the vicissitudes of
traveling. We had experienced them under various forms, and a birch
canoe was as familiar to us as a steamboat. The restlessness, the love
of wilds and hatred of cities, natural perhaps in early years to every
unperverted son of Adam, was not our only motive for undertaking the
present journey. My companion hoped to shake off the effects of a
disorder that had impaired a constitution originally hardy and robust;
and I was anxious to pursue some inquiries relative to the character and
usages of the remote Indian nations, being already familiar with many of
the border tribes.

Emerging from the mud-hole where we last took leave of the reader, we
pursued our way for some time along the narrow track, in the checkered
sunshine and shadow of the woods, till at length, issuing forth into
the broad light, we left behind us the farthest outskirts of that great