The wagon-trains were often far in advance and food at times
grew scanty, while the scarcity of fuel made it difficult to warm their
sparse supplies. During part of the journey they were drenched by heavy
rains. To these succeeded days of scorchingly hot weather, bringing thirst
in its train and desert mirages which cheated their suffering souls. When
at length the Arkansas River was reached, men and animals alike rushed
madly into its waters to slake their torment of thirst.
At times their route led through great herds of grazing buffaloes which
supplied the hungry men with sumptuous fare, but most of the time they
were forced to trust to the steadily diminishing stores of the provision
wagons. This was especially the case when they left the grassy and flowery
prairie and entered upon an arid plain, on which for months of the year no
drop of rain or dew fell, while the whitened bones of men and beasts told
of former havoc of starvation and drouth. The heated surface was in places
incrusted with alkaline earth worn into ash-like dust, or paved with
pebbles blistering hot to the feet.
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