The low shores consisted of the merest bog, overgrown heavily with stunted bushes and brown cane, but some distance beyond rose the crest of a pine forest, evidencing firmer soil.

The opposite side of the stream was no whit more inviting, except that the marsh appeared less in extent, with a few outcropping rocks visible, one rising sheer from the water's edge, so crowded with bushes as scarcely to expose the rock surface to the eye.
"I discover no evidences of life," I answered at last, reassured by my careful survey.

"Nor, for the matter of that, Master Cairnes, can I see any spot dry enough to camp upon." "Up the stream a few strokes the Spaniards had camp; not so bad a place, either, when once reached, although the current will prove difficult to overcome as we turn." Following his guidance we deflected the boat's head, and, by hard toil at the oars, slowly effected a passage up the swift stream, keeping as close as possible along the southern shore, until, having compassed something like five hundred yards, we found before us a low-lying bank, protected by rushes, dry and thickly carpeted with grass.
"What is the stream ?" I questioned, marvelling at the red tinge of the water.
"The Spaniards named it the Arkansas." "Oh, ay! I remember, although I passed this way along the other shore.
It was here some of La Salle's men made settlement near a hundred years ago, I 'm told.

The stream has trend northward." "So the Spaniards claimed to my questioning; they knew little of its upper waters, yet possessed a map placing its source a few leagues from where the Ohio joins the great river.

It was yonder they were encamped when I was here before." He pointed toward a ridge of higher ground, where two trees hung like sentinels above the bank.