"Whoever taught you that watch trick, Tom?" I asked.
"First Lieutenant James E. B. Stuart, late of G Company, First Cavalry, and now an officer in the rebel army, learnt me that once when I was out on a scout with him in the mountains and we got lost," answered Tom. "It was cloudy and we wandered about in every direction except the right one, as lost men will do. After a while the sun came out for a little while and I saw Jeb halt, take out his watch, and look at the sun. Then he said: 'Now, I have got it. The trail is off in this direction,' pointing with his right hand, while he held the watch in the left. Then he called to me: 'Come here, sergeant, and I will show you how to tell north and south by a watch. It may be useful to you some day.' And then he explained it to me, and many's the time it has been useful."
By the time we had everything packed up after breakfast and the team strung out, the sun was up and we started north.
[Illustration: _Where Old Fort Larned Stood_]
We ran a fairly straight line, bearing a little to the west, to the head of Ash Creek, which we found here to be only a prairie hollow destitute of water and timber. Before reaching Ash Creek we had begun to see plenty of buffalo in every direction except toward Fort Larned.
On reaching the high prairie north of Ash Creek we could see away to the north the distant line of timber that marked the course of Walnut Creek. A heavy body of timber was seen right ahead, and in line with our course, that Tom rightly conjectured was at the mouth of the little creek emptying into the Walnut, where French Dave had told him we would find a suitable location for a winter camp. Toward this we directed our course.
It was but little past noon when we reached the edge of the timber near the junction of the little branch and Walnut Creek, and we found here an ideal spot for our purpose--a snug camp and good hunting and trapping ground.
"We'll camp here for the night," said Tom as he dismounted, "an' to-morrow we'll look the neighborhood over thoroughly an' decide where to pitch our permanent layout."
As we had found no water on the road we had made this drive from Pawnee Fork without our usual halt for noon and decided to have our dinner and supper in one about the middle of the afternoon. After turning out the stock, bringing wood and water, and pitching the tent, while Tom was preparing the meal, Jack and I separately rambled off to do a little exploring of our immediate neighborhood. In doing so I found a prairie ravine, not far from our camp, in which there was considerable standing water at a distance of about three hundred yards from the timber on Walnut Creek. I wondered at this water, but on following the ravine down to the creek I discovered a beaver dam built across the creek, in which a number of the dome-shaped huts were standing, and saw other evidences of the presence of a populous colony of these industrious animals. The water I had seen up the ravine was backwater caused by the dam.