An hour sufficed to bring the fugitives to the bank of the stream,
which was one of the hundred rivers that serve to conduct, through the
mighty arteries of the Missouri and Mississippi, the waters of that
vast and still uninhabited region to the Ocean. The river was not
deep, but its current was troubled and rapid. The flames had scorched
the earth to its very margin, and as the warm streams of the fluid
mingled, in the cooler air of the morning, with the smoke of the
raging conflagration, most of its surface was wrapped in a mantle of
moving vapour. The trapper pointed out the circumstance with pleasure,
saying, as he assisted Inez to dismount on the margin of the
watercourse--
"The knaves have outwitted themselves! I am far from certain that I
should not have fired the prairie, to have got the benefit of this
very smoke to hide our movements, had not the heartless imps saved us
the trouble. I've known such things done in my day, and done with
success. Come, lady, put your tender foot upon the ground--for a
fearful time has it been to one of your breeding and skeary qualities.
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