CHAPTER XXV.
What, are ancient Pistol and you friends, yet?
-- Shakspeare.
The curtain of our imperfect drama must fall, to rise upon another scene.

The time is advanced several days, during which very material changes had occurred in the situation of the actors.

The hour is noon, and the place an elevated plain, that rose, at no great distance from the water, somewhat abruptly from a fertile bottom, which stretched along the margin of one of the numberless water-courses of that region.
The river took its rise near the base of the Rocky Mountains, and, after washing a vast extent of plain, it mingled its waters with a still larger stream, to become finally lost in the turbid current of the Missouri.
The landscape was changed materially for the better; though the hand, which had impressed so much of the desert on the surrounding region, had laid a portion of its power on this spot.

The appearance of vegetation was, however, less discouraging than in the more sterile wastes of the rolling prairies.

Clusters of trees were scattered in greater profusion, and a long outline of ragged forest marked the northern boundary of the view.