noon
The ill-nourished horse wearied immediately ; and any pace beyond a walk was out of the question . Had Garth only possessed snow-shoes he could have made much better time on foot . The vast expanse was as empty as a clean sheet of paper ; nevertheless , he saw the prairie was not without its busy population , as evidenced by the number of tracks of little furry paws that had crossed his course already since the snow finished falling . At noon , having made about eleven miles -LRB- he figured -RRB- , he came to the brink of a coulée wider and deeper than any they had crossed hitherto ; and which contained a stream in the bottom , running blackly around snow-capped stones . As he refreshed himself , and allowed his horse to drink , he reflected that Grylls would have reached this stream the day before about the time the snow commenced ; and that it was likely the outfit had camped on its bank until the storm passed . He determined to search up and down before pushing ahead . Sure enough , no more than two hundred yards down-stream he began to come upon the tracks of horses and saw the bare patches they had pawed to reach the grass ; and a little farther he ran plump upon the fresh remains of the camp ; two bare spots where tents had been pitched , the ashes of a fire , and innumerable tracks of men and horses -- the whole startlingly conspicuous in the sweep of unbroken snow .