A more pitiable object it would not be easy to picture. The blood oozing from my wound, re-opened by the exertion, had stained my flannel dress, which, ragged and torn, gave glimpses of a figure reduced almost to a skeleton. My beard was long, adding to the seeming length of my gaunt and lantern jaws, blue with fatigue and fasting. My shoes were in tatters, and gave no protection to my bleeding feet; while my hands were torn and cut by grasping the rocks and boughs in my descent. Half-stumbling, half-tottering, I came onward till I found myself close to the great fire, at the base of a mound--a "Prairie roll," as it is called--which formed a shelter against the east wind. Around the immense blaze sat a party, some of whom in shadow, others in strong light, presented a group the strangest ever my eyes beheld. Bronzed and bearded countenances, whose fierce expression glowed fiercer in the ruddy glare of the fire, were set off by costumes the oddest imaginable. Many wore coats of undressed sheepskin, with tall caps of the same material; others had ragged uniforms of different services. One or two were dressed in "ponchos" of red-brown cloth, like Mexicans, and some, again, had a kind of buff coat studded with copper ornaments,--a costume often seen among the half-breeds. All agreed in one feature of equipment, which was a broad leather belt or girdle, in which were fastened various shining implements, of which a small pickaxe and a hammer were alone distinguishable where I stood. Several muskets were piled near them, and on the scorched boughs of the cedars hung a little armory of cutlasses, pistols, and "bowies," from which I was able to estimate the company at some twenty-eight or thirty in number. Packs and knapsacks, with some rude cooking utensils, were strewn around; but the great carcase of a deer which I saw in the flames, supported by a chevaux-de-frise of ramrods, was the best evidence that the cares of "cuisine" did not demand any unnecessary aid from "casseroles." A couple of great earthen pitchers passed rapidly from hand to hand round the circle, and, by the assistance of some blackhead, served to beguile the time while the "roast" was being prepared.