The tents were pitched, the fires made, and the meals prepared by the voyageurs, and many a story was told, and joke passed, and song sung round the evening fire.

All, however, were asleep at an early hour.

Some under the tents, others wrapped in blankets before the fire, or beneath the trees; and some few in the boats and canoes.
On the 28th, they breakfasted on one of the islands which lie at the mouth of the Nebraska or Platte River--the largest tributary of the Missouri, and about six hundred miles above its confluence with the Mississippi.

This broad but shallow stream flows for an immense distance through a wide and verdant valley scooped out of boundless prairies.

It draws its main supplies, by several forks or branches, from the Rocky Mountains.