some distance up the south branch of the river, and occupied by a tenant
named Liberty White.

The prospect was in truth depressing to one accustomed to other and more
civilized surroundings. A spirit of loneliness, of fearful isolation,
seemed to hover over the restless waters upon the one hand, and those
vast silent plains on the other; sea and sky, sky and sand, met the
wearied eye wherever it wandered. The scene was unspeakably solemn in
its immensity and loneliness; while irresistibly the thought would wander
over those fateful leagues of prairie and forest that stretched
unbrokenly between this far frontier and the few scattered and remote
settlements that were its nearest neighbors.

It was not until some time later that these sombre reflections pressed
upon me with all their force. After the excitement of our first
boisterous greeting was over, and I found opportunity to lean across the
top of the guarded stockade and gaze alone over the desolate spectacle I
have endeavored to describe, I could feel more acutely the hopelessness
of our situation and the danger threatening us from every side. But at
the moment of our entrance, all my interest and attention had been
centred upon the scenes and persons immediately about me. It was my
first experience within the stockaded walls of an armed government post.
The scene was new to my young senses, and, in spite of the excitement
that still heated my blood, I looked upon it with such absorbing interest
as to be forgetful for the moment even of the fair girl who rode in at my
side.

The dull clang of the heavy iron-bound gate behind us was a welcome sound
after the fierce buffetings of our perilous passage; yet it only
partially shut off the savage howlings, while above the hideous uproar