After many days of painful travel, precisely similar to the one I have described, except that the western ridge was more difficult than the eastern, I reached the prairie through which the Red River runs. On the summit of several of the peaks I had found large springs and pools of water, and in the valleys the streams expanded into beautiful lakes. In some of these valleys were grand groves of the wild-plum, and a variety of other growths, among which was the iron-wood and box-elder. The cotton-wood, so common northward, has disappeared. At last I arrived at Fort Towson. I had missed the direction, and to reach a point about one hundred miles from Gibson, had traveled three. Twenty miles after leaving the latter post, I had seen the smoke of not one hearth till I reached the yellow water, about ten miles from Fort Towson, yet during all this time I had been in a small labyrinth of mountains, surrounded on all sides by the dense population of the Cherokee and Chickasa nation, the Opeloulas of Louisiana and Western Texas.
I afterward was informed that the Indian path I had more than once passed was a portion of the great Delaware trail which crosses the whole American continent, from Erie, in Pennsylvania, to California, and which marks the migration of those American Gitanos from the homes where the white man found them to the chief seat of the tribe on the Missouri River, to the outposts on the Red River and on the Pacific. Along it they still go, and not unfrequently two of their well-armed and gallant braves will fight their way through hordes of hostile and degenerate Indians of the prairie. It will be found always to cross the streams at the most fordable point, and he who strays from it to avoid travel, will generally find that the longest way round is the nearest way home. After my arrival at Fort Gibson I did not regret my mistake, which had made me acquainted with so beautiful a country; and I hope my reader is weary neither of the Illinois River or the Ozark Mountains.
So die the young, ere yet the bud has burst Its leafy prison-house—perchance, ’tis best— The flower may pine and perish with the thirst For dew and moisture, but the dead will rest, Heedless of storm and sunshine; on their breast The modest violet at Spring will bloom, And speak their noteless epitaph—the west May blow too rudely in an hour of gloom, But still it clings to thee, lone tenant of the tomb.