Mary, which I hoped to meet there, had departed on the eve of my arrival, and thus the opportunity of a prompt return to St. Louis appeared lost to me. I resolved, however, to exert myself to the utmost to overtake the boat: this to many would appear folly; the idea of running after a highpressure steamboat certainly does appear quite ridiculous. But I relied upon the numerous delays of the boat at the different sand-banks, which were more likely to take place, also, as the season was advancing. I calculated well; in twenty-four hours I was on board at Fort Leavenworth.
For four months I had been night and day exposed to the open air, and, as in all my other excursions, with no bed but a buffalo robe. Yet my health had been uninterruptedly good, not even suffering from the slightest attack of cold; but scarcely was I subjected, for one day, to the heat of the stove in the cabin of the steamboat, when I was seized with a violent sore throat - it being my first indisposition through the whole of my long journey.
At length, after four months' absence, I arrived without other accident at the University of St. Louis, where, enjoying with my brethren the charms of the community life, I soon forgot the little fatigues of my expedition.