The night was approaching, and matters were beginning to be serious, when the coach was stopped by striking against some concealed obstacle, and the horses swerved round. After gazing upon the fresh snow for a few seconds, the driver said that it was practically useless to attempt to follow the track, as it was impossible to make out its direction. It was evident that there was not the slightest reason for making any endeavours to follow one way more than any other, and we had the dangerous prospect before us of having to pass the night under circumstances of great hardship. Fortunately it was suggested, that we might try the experiment of maintaining a line of progress by attending to the point from which the wind came. It had been observed that, when we were going along the straight track, the wind was upon the right hand, nearly abeam, and it was considered possible that if we could manage to keep it upon that bearing, we ought finally to arrive at our destination. The driver thought that this plan did not offer much prospect of success, on account of the scattered boulders and the rough nature of the country. He however decided to do what was proposed, and started forward. An unforeseen difficulty soon arose. The horses having no track before them to follow, kept constantly swerving to the left to avoid the wind, and it required much skill and energy to keep their heads pointed in the right direction. The obstructions we had to encounter, caused us much anxiety, for we were exposed to a bitterly cold gale, and the storm blew against us with a severity that was unendurable. It was with no slight pleasure that, just before the night, we saw upon the verge of the horizon ahead, the lights of the town where we intended to stop. When we arrived there, it was found that the roads had become almost impassable, in consequence of the great depth of the snow that had fallen in a few hours. As the prairies of Western Iowa had thus become a vast white table land, whose ground was hidden from view, I crossed the Missouri as soon as possible and proceeded to the interior of Nebraska where the storm had not taken place and the surface of the land was still in its autumnal condition. I stopped at various places in the valley of the river Platte and, at one of the newly formed settlements, obtained convenient quarters in the house of a man who had passed the greatest part of his life with the Pawnees, a tribe of Indians who have always been considered to hold an exceptional position with respect to their religious observances and language. He had lived in the tents and was well acquainted with their habits of life, and like all other men whom I had met who had been much in contact with the Indians, occupying the country west of the Mississippi, he had been impressed by the reality of their personal faith in supernatural manifestations of power for good or evil.