The afternoon was half gone, but I hoped to reach a settlement on R— River, and spend the night there. But the chapter of accidents was not full. As I was ascending from the low village plot, the pins that held the bows in the yokes dropped out in concert, as if in memory of past joltings, letting the cattle free; of which casualty, they were not slow to take advantage, scampering off like wild buffaloes. In vain I used all the arts of which I was master, seeking to coax, surprise, or drive them into the bows again, which I bore with me for the purpose. If for a moment they stopped to graze, it was with one eye on me, ready to spring away at my approach. Help appeared, however, in the person of a map agent, just from New England, having left college, and come West for his health. He recognized me at a distance, and filled with compassion, hastened to the rescue as fast as his lame leg, made stiff by a rheumatic affection, would permit. The scene now became ludicrous in the extreme, and I laughed till the tears came, at my own plight and the figure my earnest friend cut, dragging his troublesome limb after him, as he tried to head the cattle. Farm bred, the crook of his arm and his intonations were rural, to perfection, but, as if aware of his infirmity, the wily brutes would wait his coming, and then, just in the nick of time, shake their heads and dart by. More effective aid was rendered when an emigrant wagon appeared. Its inmates, scattering over the plain, proved too much for brindles, and they were captured, and the wooden pins that, with a borrowed axe, I had made meantime, were driven into the bows with an emphasis, that said, "Stay there!" Twilight overtook me crossing a succession of sharply-defined ridges, black as Erebus, for the prairie fires had just swept over them. Wagon-tracks diverged on either hand, and when darkness fell,—and it was "pitchy dark,"—I soon lost my way, and there seemed before me the only alternative of passing the night where I was. The tent-like clouds lifted slightly, and stopping the team, I was considering what to do, when I saw something white moving along. It proved to be a man in shirt sleeves. "Halloo!" I shouted, and he came nearer. "Can you tell me where the Norwegian lives?" "An' it's about a mile an' a quarter, kaping the ravine to the second right hand road, thin kape to the lift apiece, an' ye'll come to it. But do ye know the way at all, at all?" "Never was here before." "Thin ye can niver find it, sure!" "Not unless you will show me the way." "Indade an' I can't! Fur yer see I'm in me shirt sleeves, an' I've been shakin' with the ager, an' the night air 'll bring it on agin. I wouldn't have exposed meself, but me cattle have strayed off." "Oh, they will be found, no doubt!" "But the neighbors up here have their turnips out, and they swear they'll shoot me cattle if they git at the turnips, an' as there's no fence they'll be sure an' do it, an' me oxen will be kilt intirely!"