His commander meditated a moment. "Well, my boy," he began, "I am not anxious that you should leave me; I have enjoyed having you with us through this expedition, and I don't exaggerate when I say that you have made yourself as useful as any of my regular staff officers, and have been as courageous in conduct and as uncomplaining under hardships as any soldier could be,--probably more courageous than necessary, though that is never a condemnable fault. But my judgment is that, since you are in this country primarily to find your brother, your proper course will be to get to Fort La Framboise as soon as possible. When we reach the Yellowstone you will probably be able to go on ahead of the army to Fort Union, on the Missouri, where, no doubt, you can soon catch a boat downward bound from Fort Benton which will take you to Fort La Framboise in a few days." Al was deeply gratified by his commander's words of praise, the more so since General Sully was not a man given to flattery nor to the bestowal of undue praise upon his subordinates. He very much disliked the idea of leaving the army and his many friends in it before the conclusion of the campaign, but he felt that the General was right. Indeed, it had been his opinion ever since his conversation with Te-o-kun-ko that he ought to get to Fort La Framboise as soon as he could, but he had also felt that he owed it to General Sully to await the latter's opinion and be governed by it, and he was glad to find that this opinion agreed with his own. As the army advanced westward, the country became more sterile rather than less so. It was evident that there had been no rain in this region for a long time and whatever grass had ever grown there had, moreover, been eaten off right down to the roots by a plague of grasshoppers. These insects, moving across the country in vast multitudes, often caused widespread devastation all over the West in early days, and many a pioneer farmer saw his entire crop of corn, small grain, and vegetables utterly destroyed in a single day by the ravenous pests while he stood by, helpless to protect or save the fruits of his year of hard work. In the case of the Northwestern Indian Expedition, the visitation of the grasshoppers, together with lack of water, entailed untold suffering upon the thousands of animals with the column. Hardly any corn or grain was left; and the poor beasts, enfeebled by their weeks of hard, hot marching, generally with insufficient food and water, were becoming mere skeletons, hardly able to keep moving.