“Wagh!” grunted William New. “Hyar’s whar we shine. Now for Indypendence Rock an’ the Sweetwater an’ the Pass over. We got a guide who air up to trap. That agent purty nigh lost us, but you can’t lose Kit Carson.” “How far to the Pass?” queried Oliver. “Wall, by regular trail it’s ’bout fifty miles to the Rock, an’ then a hundred to the Pass. But we aren’t going by regular trail; see? We’re travelling on up the Platte, an’ it turns southward, for the Bull Pen or what they call New Park; whilst the regular Oregon an’ trapper trail cuts the curves, on other side, lining for the Sweetwater. It’s the Sweetwater that flows down from the Pass an’ j’ines the Platte below at head o’ those red canyons we saw.” The stories by the Indians seemed not true; for when the next day the march was resumed buffalo were sighted. Some would have been killed had not Clément Lambert’s horse, just as Clément was closing in on the tail of the fleeing herd, plunged headlong into a sudden ravine; while Clément was climbing out, the buffalo, tails high, scrambled like goats up a precipice ridge, and escaped. Nevertheless, the camp that night was supplied with jerked or dried buffalo meat from a previous hunt, and found plenty of grass. Frémont had named the camp, several nights back, where the buffalo meat had been obtained, Dried Meat Camp. Yesterday’s camp was of course Cache Camp; on this all agreed. This afternoon’s camp was pitched near a mud bank studded with large pebbles worn oval; therefore William New dubbed it Goose-Egg Camp! Now according to Lieutenant Frémont’s compass the Platte was inclining more and more to the south; and it was rumored among the men that unless they crossed pretty soon to the Sweetwater, so as to strike it above its juncture with the Platte, they would be entangled among precipices. The country was beautifully red, with brown and pink sandstone and “pudding-stone” (as the pebbly formation was termed), and even the soil was red; a curious landscape flowed through by the greenish river. But twelve miles from Goose-Egg Camp Kit Carson, riding ahead with Lieutenant Frémont, halted. So halted the column. “Injun sign,” announced Ike Chamberlain, for the way was crossed by a trail of an Indian village which, here camping, had left lodge-poles and horse skeletons. But not for “Injun sign” had halted Kit Carson; he was talking earnestly with the lieutenant and with Lucien Maxwell and Basil Lajeunesse, and pointing. “We’ll have to turn off. Knew we would,” predicted Trapper New. “An’ that army fellow’ll find out why, if Kit hasn’t told him plain enough an’ he goes on. Yonder’s whar the Platte comes out the Fiery Narrows, an’ on above the Fiery Narrows (which are _some_, I say!) are nothing but more canyons clear to mouth o’ Sweetwater. Even a beaver couldn’t get through, an’ I don’t reckon we can, either. An’ it’d take a bird to cross.”