As it was near daylight, we forbore to do any thing to frighten away the intruders, hoping, as soon as the light should be sufficient, to have an opportunity to prove our skill in the operation of "creasing." A method sometimes adopted by hunters for taking the wild horses, is to shoot the animal through the neck, using the requisite care not to injure the spine. There is a particular part of the neck through which a horse may receive a rifle ball without sustaining any permanent injury; the blow is, however, sufficient to produce a temporary suspension of the powers of life, during which the animal is easily taken: this is called creasing, and requires for its successful performance a very considerable degree of skill and precision in the use of the rifle. A valuable but rather refractory mule belonging to our party, escaped from the cantonment near Council Bluffs, a few days before we left that place. He was pursued by two men through the prairies of the Papillon, across the Elk Horn, and finally to the Platte, where, as they saw no prospect of taking him by other means, they resolved upon creasing. The ball, however, swerved an inch or two from its aim, and broke the neck of the animal. CHAPTER VII {I}[70] Inconveniences Resulting from Want of Water--Wood Ticks--Plants--Loss of One of the Party--Honey Bees--Forests--Gray Sandstone--Indications of Coal--Limestone. August 22d. So much rain had fallen during the night, that, soon after commencing our morning march, we enjoyed the novel and pleasing sight of a running stream of water. It had been only two weeks since the disappearance of running water in the river above, but during this time we had suffered much from thirst, and had been constantly tantalized with the expectation of arriving at the spot where the river should emerge from the sand. By our computation of distances we had travelled more than one hundred and fifty miles along the bed of this river without having once found it to contain running water. We had passed the mouths of many large tributaries, but they, like the river itself, were beds of naked sand. The narrative of Lewis and Clarke has been thought deserving of ridicule, on account of the frequent mention of "dry rivers;" but if not rivers, what are these extensive drains, {2} carrying off the occasional surplus of water from large districts, to be called? It is to be remembered also, that all the more considerable of them are constantly conveying away, silent and unseen, in the bottom of their deep beds, streams of water of no trifling magnitude. This is probably the case with all such as have their sources in the primitive country of the Rocky Mountains, likewise with those which traverse any great extent of the floetz trap district, as both of these formations afford a more abundant supply of water than the sandstone tracts.