We at length found a rugged ravine, down which we with some difficulty wound our way to the base of the cliff, where lay a beautiful level plain, having some scattered cotton-wood and willow trees, and affording good pasture for our horses. Here we encamped, and the remainder of the afternoon was {230} spent in making preparations to despatch a small party up the Arkansa to the mountains on the succeeding day. A small doe was killed near camp, which, though extremely lean, proved an important addition to our supply of provisions. The place where we encamped was supposed to have been near where Pike's block-house formerly stood, but we sought in vain for the traces of anything resembling the work of a white man.[13] {231} CHAPTER II {IX} A Detachment from the Exploring Party Ascend the Arkansa to the Mountains--Bell's Springs--Descent of the Arkansa--Grizzly Bear. On the morning of the 17th Captain Bell, with Dr. James and two men, took their departure, proposing to ascend the Arkansa to the mountains. They were furnished with provisions for two days, according to the scanty allowance to which we were all reduced. The river valley was found so narrow, and so obstructed by the timber and the windings of the stream, as greatly to impede the travelling; we therefore resolved to leave it, and pursue our journey in the open plain at a distance from the river. The course of the Arkansa, for the first twenty miles from the mountains, is but little south of east. It enters the plain at the extremity of an extensive amphitheatre, formed by the continued chain of the mountains on the west and north-west, and by the projecting spur which contains the high peak on the east. This semicircular area is about thirty miles in length from north to south, and probably twenty wide at its southern extremity. The mountains which bound it on the west are high, but at this time had little snow on them. The surface of the area is an almost unvaried plain, and is based upon the stratum of argillaceous sandstone. Near the base of the mountain the same sandstone is observed, resting in an inclined position against the primitive rocks. It forms a range like that already mentioned, when speaking of the mountains at the Platte, separated from the primitive by a narrow secluded valley. On entering this valley we found {232} the recent trace of a large party of Indians, travelling with skin lodges, who appeared to have passed within a very short time. This trace we followed, until we found it entered the mountains in the valley of a small stream which descends to the Arkansa from the north-east. This we left on the east, and traversing a rough and broken tract of sandstone hills, arrived, after a toilsome day's journey of about thirty miles, at the spot where the Arkansa leaves the mountains.