About noon
Sometimes flocks of wild birds rose , or bands of gaunt , famished , ferocious prairie-wolves ran howling after the sledge . Passepartout , revolver in hand , held himself ready to fire on those which came too near . Had an accident then happened to the sledge , the travellers , attacked by these beasts , would have been in the most terrible danger ; but it held on its even course , soon gained on the wolves , and ere long left the howling band at a safe distance behind . About noon Mudge perceived by certain landmarks that he was crossing the Platte River . He said nothing , but he felt certain that he was now within twenty miles of Omaha . In less than an hour he left the rudder and furled his sails , whilst the sledge , carried forward by the great impetus the wind had given it , went on half a mile further with its sails unspread . It stopped at last , and Mudge , pointing to a mass of roofs white with snow , said : `` We have got there ! ''