The anticipation of new and strange
incidents operated to produce in the minds of the travellers, from the
commencement of the enterprise, a kind of wild pleasure.
With alert and vigorous steps they pursued a north-west course, and were
soon beyond the reach of the most distant view of their homes. This day
and night, and the succeeding one, the scenes in view were familiar; but
in the course of the four or five that followed, all vestiges of
civilized habitancy had disappeared. The route lay through a solitary
and trackless wilderness. Before them rose a line of mountains, shooting
up against the blue of the horizon, in peaks and elevations of all
forms. The slender store of food with which they had set out, was soon
exhausted. To obtain a fresh supply was the first and most pressing
want. Accordingly, a convenient place was selected, and a camp
constructed of logs and branches of trees, to keep out the dew and rain.
The whole party joined in this preliminary arrangement. When it was so
far completed, as to enable a part to finish it before night-fall, part
of the company took their rifles and went in different directions in
pursuit of game. They returned in time for supper, with a couple of deer
and some wild turkeys. Those, whose business it was to finish the camp,
had made a generous fire and acquired keen appetites for the coming
feast. The deer were rapidly dressed, so far at least as to furnish a
supper of venison. It had not been long finished, and the arrangements
for the night made, before the clouds, which had been gathering
blackness for some hours, rolled up in immense folds from the point,
whence was heard the sudden burst of a furious wind.
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