noon
Monsheer Owato Wanisha , -- queer outlandish name , by the bye , -- please to pass me another slice of the varmint -LRB- meaning the buffalo-calf -RRB- . Bless my soul , if I did not think , at one time , it was after the liquor the brutes were running ! '' Upon the morning of the third day , we resumed our journey , following the stream down for a few miles , over thousands of dead animals , which the now foaming torrent could not wash away . We struck the winding path which the `` estampedados '' had taken ; and as it had been worked by the millions of fugitives into a gentle ascent , we found ourselves , long before noon , once more upon the level of the prairie . What a spectacle of gloom and death ! As far as the eye could reach , the earth was naked and blackened . Not a stem of grass , not a bush , had escaped the awful conflagration ; and thousands of half-burnt bodies of deer , buffaloes , and mustangs covered the prairie in every direction .