As we neared the western shore a few houses could be seen, and the captain said it was Southport.

As there was no wharf our schooner put out into the lake again for an hour or so and then ran back again, lying off and on in this manner all night.

In the morning it was quite calm and we went on shore in the schooner's yawl, landing on a sandy beach.

We left our chest of clothes and other things in a warehouse and shouldered our packs and guns for a march across what seemed an endless prairie stretching to the west.

We had spent all our lives thus far in a country where all the clearing had to be made with an axe, and such a broad field was to us an entirely new feature.