Besides these two animals, we gained two fine Indian saddles, and were now as well mounted as we could wish. Nat remarked, that when the buffaloes thundered by he felt some apprehension for me, but the trapper expressed none, saying that I would be found all right in the morning. As soon as there was light, Nat commenced searching the bed of the stream for me, and failing in this, he climbed a tree and took a survey of the prairie on both sides. From his elevation he discovered what he believed to be my dead body; and, accompanied by Biddon and the horses, hastened toward me. Upon reaching me, they understood instantly the whole matter, and it was their loud laughter that had aroused me. We were now pretty far to the northwest of Nebraska Territory. The face of the country was materially different, and I began to notice a change of temperature. The summer had just closed, and the early autumn was like the approach of winter. The nights were cool and chilling, and the days generally mild at noon, but often keen and exhilarating. The prairie was mostly of the rolling kind, but the belts of timber were more common, and the vegetation richer and more exuberant. It was plain, too, that we were journeying into a section where the foot of civilization had not been. The vast, undulating swell of the prairie, the mighty fields of verdure, and the broad rivers and streams, bore only the marks of the red man and wild beast. Toward noon, Nat descried a solitary antelope far ahead. It was near a grove of timber, from which it had just wandered, and stood gazing wonderingly at our approach. We rode on in silence for some time, when Biddon raised his hand for us to halt. “What do you intend doing?” I asked. “Jes’ hold on and see,” he replied, as he dismounted. He made a circuit, skirting the prairie, so as to reach the grove mentioned upon the opposite side from the antelope. I still was at a loss to understand his intention, as the animal was too distant from the timber to be brought down with a rifle-shot from that point. “What under the sun does he intend doing?” I asked, turning to Nat. “Guess he’s getting off there to shoot us.”