At last the darkness began to give way to the light of the morn; and about nine o’clock, through a field-glass, from a house-top, an object was sighted in the distance. Nearer and nearer and plainer and plainer it became, until we were all satisfied that the lost was found and the dead had come to life. He was much surprised at the excitement his little chase had caused. He said that just as he was going over the raise he chased four great sand-hill cranes, and shot at them over the hill. The scene was now explained and the mystery solved. These cranes are large, and in flying along close to the ground our friend had imagined the long, slender wings whipping the air, to be Indian arms whipping their ponies; and knowing them to be in the country still colored the imagination. The young man was much mortified at his deception; and they all laughed at him so much that he peered toward the hills as though wishing the Indians would come and ally with him to kill the whole valley. This little incident taught us to always be on our guard and to never run until we saw the elephant. The school-marm thanked me for my kindness, and gave me an affectionate good-by; and as we pulled out she looked after us, and Dave and Charles drew long breaths, as though envying me my affectionate relations with the Birdie of the prairie. Leaving the valley and going south, we came upon a broad, level plain, where the horizon looked like a great wagon-wheel and we could see many miles in all directions. The first water was _Plum Creek_, in nine miles. This is a dry gulch running through the prairie, with pools every mile or two. In very dry summers they become dry. The next water was Butte Creek, in six miles; and here we camped for the night. This is like Plum Creek, only the gulch is very deep and the country is extremely rough upon either side. The valley is full of cotton-wood trees and brier-bushes; and the hungry wolves howled loudly behind every hill. Dave and Charles had heard _too much_ about wolves to rest easily where they were so numerous; and the roar of their rifles and six-shooters made the night a lively one. In the morning several big grays lay dead in the valley as the result of the late lead-storm. I told them that they would have to be saving with the ammunition; but they said ammunition would be of no use when they were devoured by wolves, and we would have been eaten up alive that very night had they not fought so hard; “for,” said they, “as we sat by the fire their eyes glittered among the hills like stars in the heavens, and every now and then a big fellow would howl out at our very sides, as much as to say, ‘I got him.’” We took an early start, and traveled over the dry country until the sun was hiding himself in the west, when, having traveled full thirty miles, we again came among the hills and caught sight of the tops of some little trees that grew in a deep gulch, and we knew we were now near water.