In consequence of there being little grass where we stopped last night,
we were off early this morning, and intended to cross the south fork of
the Platte before we stopped, which we supposed was about ten miles
distant. Today I saw almost countless numbers of buffalo. I saw several
shot and a great many dead by the road. They are huge animals, some of
them larger than any I ever saw; ran in a clumsy sort of canter, yet
they are not slow, as it takes a good horse to overtake them. A man
stayed with us last night who had got lost while in pursuit of the game.
He and another man had killed three, and had some choice cuts with them.
In the morning I lent my rifle to one of our party who wished to go
hunting. In a couple of hours he came up with the gun broken; he said it
was done in a hand-to-hand encounter with a buffalo. But I shall not
state the particulars, as I have reason to discredit his story. About
noon we reached the south fork of the Platte and crossed it immediately.
This river where we cross it is about one mile wide, with an average
depth of about one foot. It is entirely different from any other river I
ever saw in the States. The bed of the river is a kind of quicksand,
into which a horse will sink several inches by standing still a few
moments. Another of our men has just returned from buffalo hunting. He
succeeded in killing one, but not till he had fired twelve bullets at
it. The balls at the head rebounded as from the solid rock. This evening
one of our men found a human skull near our wagons. It was perforated by
a ball just above the left eye and through the back of the head. We
examined it and conjectured how it came here--whether Indian or white,
male or female. But all our conjectures could not draw from its eyeless
hole one ray of its history, nor awake a slumbering echo in its hollow
ear. "Alas, poor Yorick! Is that a place where a god may dwell?" We have
passed more than fifty wagons today. In the afternoon a thunder shower
came up in the west, and for two or three hours threatened heavy rain;
and at length, after shedding a few drops, it passed round to the south.
We have been just one week in coming from Fort Kearney, a distance of
125 miles. At this rate we shall reach Fort Laramie by the first of
June. The grass is poor in this region, and is never so good here as in
the districts we have passed. I have not seen an Indian in two weeks,
but I presume they have seen us every day. Distance, fifteen miles.