I filled my saddle-bags with jerked buffalo, hardtack and ground coffee, and took with me a belt of cartridges, my rifle and six-shooter, a field-glass and my blankets, prepared for any emergency. The first day out, I found a few of the lost cattle, and placed them on the river-bottom, which I continued to do as fast as I recovered them, for a distance of about eighty-five miles down the Arkansas. There I met a wagon-train, the drivers of which told me that I would find several more of my oxen with a train that had arrived at the Cimarron crossing the day before. I came up with this train in eight or ten hours' travel south of the river, got my cattle, and started next morning for home. I picked up those I had left on the Arkansas as I went along, and after having made a very hard day's travel, about sundown I concluded I would go into camp. I had only fairly halted when the oxen began to drop down, so completely tired out were they, as I believed. Just as it was growing dark, I happened to look toward the west, and I saw several fires on a big island, near what was called "The Lone Tree," about a mile from where I had determined to remain for the night. Thinking the fires were those of the soldiers that I had heard were on the road from Denver, and anticipating and longing for a cup of good coffee, as I had had none for five days, knowing, too, that the troops would be full of news, I felt good and determined to go over to their camp. The Arkansas was low, but the banks steep, with high, rank grass growing to the very water's edge. I found a buffalo-trail cut through the deep bank, narrow and precipitous, and down this I went, arriving in a short time within a little distance of my supposed soldiers' camp. When I had reached the middle of another deep cut in the bank, I looked across to the island, and, great Caesar! saw a hundred little fires, around which an aggregation of a thousand Indians were huddled!