A day later the caravan had entered the rich and beautiful valley of the Arkansas, following the Trail where it swung in toward the Big Bend, through a hunting-ground that abounded in all manner of game. Thirteen miles beyond lay Pawnee Rock. There were signs of a caravan having preceded them by not many days. St. Vrain and the _mayordomo_ discussed the possibility of its being the army detachment that had followed Bent’s caravan. Every man was supplied with plenty of powder, two good muskets, a pouchful of balls. They threaded the valley of the Arkansas prepared for a surprise attack. Steven, like all the other men, had for weeks been sleeping with his loaded gun by his side. Night alarms were frequent, yet the only attacks were those of mosquitoes, against which guns were useless. There was an incessant scratching and brushing and switching of tails to keep off horse flies and a giant and bloodthirsty mosquito. Steven’s pet riding-mule ran off insane with the flies and never came back. Steven was so eager to bear his part that he slept little; as a consequence, when his turn came for night watch it was all that he could do, even with the help of the mosquitoes, to keep his eyes open and not disgrace himself eternally by falling asleep at his post. After midnight, however, it was not so difficult, but next day he drowsed and nodded on the wagon seat and slept outright while Pierre drove beside him. He was roused when the trapper yelled out, “Pawnee Rock,” and opened his eyes to see looming high before them the rock of bloody record, as gory a stone of sacrifice, according to the colonel’s stories, as that famed in old Mexico for the slaughter of Aztec victims. As they passed below the face of the cliff the colonel came riding by to see what might lie beyond on the far side. But for once the sentinel of the plains harbored no dead, no skeletons. There was no sign of a struggle having taken place there, and the caravan continued onward to the Forks with a breath of relief. At the Forks they left the southern trail that followed the river so closely, and took to the northern route, which the colonel thought less open to ambush.