There were also four oxen, which were added as a contribution to their stock of provisions, one may well imagine that so numerous a cavalcade, winding its way over the undulating and treeless prairie, would present a very imposing aspect.
An Indian guide conducted them for the first forty miles, along the river banks, with which Mr.Carson was not familiar.

He then left them and they entered upon that vast ocean of prairie which extended, with scarcely any interruption, to the base of the Rocky mountains.
The borders of nearly all these western streams are fringed with a narrow belt of forest.

Here where there was abundance of water, the richest of soil, which needed but to be "tickled with a hoe to laugh with a harvest," and where there was an ample supply of timber for building and for fuel, they found many good-looking Indian farms with Indians riding about in their picturesque costumes.
At an early hour in the afternoon they encamped in a smooth and luxuriant meadow, upon the banks of a small stream flowing into the Kansas.

Nearly all the party were experienced backwoodsmen.

Speedily, and with almost military precision, the camp was formed in the following manner: The eight carts were so arranged as to present a sort of barricade, encircling an area about eighty yards in diameter.