Leaving our camp at an early hour, we moved down the valley towards the south-east, passing some large and beautiful groves of timber. The fox squirrel, which we had not seen since we left the Missouri, the cardinal and summer red bird, the forked-tail tyrant, and the pileated wood-pecker, with other birds and animals belonging to a woody country, now became frequent. The ravens, common in all the open plains, began to give place to crows, now first noticed. Thickets of oak, elm, and nyssa, began to occur on the hills, and the fertile soil of the low plains to be covered with a dense growth of ambrosia, helianthus, and other heavy weeds. As we were riding forward, at a small distance from the river, two noble bucks and a fawn happened to cross our path, a few rods in front of the party. As the wind blew from them to us, they could not take our scent, and turned to gaze at us without the least appearance of alarm. The leader was shot down by one of the party, when his companion and the fawn, instead of taking fright, came nearer to us, and stood within pistol-shot, closely watching our movements, while the hunters were butchering the one we had killed. This unusual degree of tameness we could discover more or less in all the animals of this region; and it seems to indicate that man, the enemy and destroyer of all things, is less known here than in any portions of the country we have passed. In some parts of our route we have seen the antelopes take fright when we were more than a mile to the windward of them, when they could have received no intimation from us only by sight, yet it does not appear that their powers of {6} vision are in any degree superior to those of most other ruminant animals. Sunday, August 27th. We were able to select for this day's rest a delightful situation at the confluence of a small creek from the south. The wide valley of the river here presented a pleasing alternation of heavy forests, with small but luxuriant meadows, affording a profuse supply of grass for our horses. The broad hills, swelling gently one above another as they recede from the river, are diversified with nearly the same intermixture of field and forest as in the most highly cultivated portions of the eastern states. Herds of bisons, wild horses, elk and deer, are seen quietly grazing in these extensive and fertile pastures; the habitations and the works of man alone seem wanting to complete the picture of rural abundance.