The Oregon Trail
by Francis Parkman, Jr.
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman

by Francis Parkman, Jr.

CONTENTS

I  THE FRONTIER

II  BREAKING THE ICE

III  FORT LEAVENWORTH

IV  "JUMPING OFF"

V  "THE BIG BLUE"

VI  THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT

VII  THE BUFFALO

VIII  TAKING FRENCH LEAVE

IX  SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE

X  THE WAR PARTIES

XI  SCENES AT THE CAMP

XII  ILL LUCK

XIII  HUNTING INDIANS

XIV  THE OGALLALLA VILLAGR

XV  THE HUNTING CAMP

XVI  THE TRAPPERS

XVII  THE BLACK HILLS

XVIII  A MOUNTAIN HUNT

XIX  PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS

XX  THE LONELY JOURNEY

XXI  THE PUEBLO AND BENT'S FORT

XXII  TETE ROUGE, THE VOLUNTEER

XXIII  INDIAN ALARMS

XXIV  THE CHASE

XXV  THE BUFFALO CAMP

XXVI  DOWN THE ARKANSAS

XXVII  THE SETTLEMENTS

CHAPTER I

THE FRONTIER

Last spring, 1846, was a busy season in the City of St. Louis. Not
only were emigrants from every part of the country preparing for the
journey to Oregon and California, but an unusual number of traders
were making ready their wagons and outfits for Santa Fe. Many of the
emigrants, especially of those bound for California, were persons of
wealth and standing. The hotels were crowded, and the gunsmiths and
saddlers were kept constantly at work in providing arms and
equipments for the different parties of travelers. Almost every day
steamboats were leaving the levee and passing up the Missouri,
crowded with passengers on their way to the frontier.

In one of these, the Radnor, since snagged and lost, my friend and
relative, Quincy A. Shaw, and myself, left St. Louis on the 28th of
April, on a tour of curiosity and amusement to the Rocky Mountains.
The boat was loaded until the water broke alternately over her
guards. Her upper deck was covered with large weapons of a peculiar
form, for the Santa Fe trade, and her hold was crammed with goods for
the same destination. There were also the equipments and provisions
of a party of Oregon emigrants, a band of mules and horses, piles of
saddles and harness, and a multitude of nondescript articles,
indispensable on the prairies. Almost hidden in this medley one
might have seen a small French cart, of the sort very appropriately
called a "mule-killer" beyond the frontiers, and not far distant a
tent, together with a miscellaneous assortment of boxes and barrels.
The whole equipage was far from prepossessing in its appearance; yet,
such as it was, it was destined to a long and arduous journey, on
which the persevering reader will accompany it.

The passengers on board the Radnor corresponded with her freight. In
her cabin were Santa Fe traders, gamblers, speculators, and
adventurers of various descriptions, and her steerage was crowded
with Oregon emigrants, "mountain men," negroes, and a party of Kansas
Indians, who had been on a visit to St. Louis.

Thus laden, the boat struggled upward for seven or eight days against
the rapid current of the Missouri, grating upon snags, and hanging
for two or three hours at a time upon sand-bars. We entered the
mouth of the Missouri in a drizzling rain, but the weather soon
became clear, and showed distinctly the broad and turbid river, with
its eddies, its sand-bars, its ragged islands, and forest-covered
shores. The Missouri is constantly changing its course; wearing away
its banks on one side, while it forms new ones on the other. Its
channel is shifting continually. Islands are formed, and then washed
away; and while the old forests on one side are undermined and swept
off, a young growth springs up from the new soil upon the other.
With all these changes, the water is so charged with mud and sand
that it is perfectly opaque, and in a few minutes deposits a sediment
an inch thick in the bottom of a tumbler. The river was now high;
but when we descended in the autumn it was fallen very low, and all
the secrets of its treacherous shallows were exposed to view. It was
frightful to see the dead and broken trees, thick-set as a military
abatis, firmly imbedded in the sand, and all pointing down stream,
ready to impale any unhappy steamboat that at high water should pass
over that dangerous ground.

In five or six days we began to see signs of the great western
movement that was then taking place. Parties of emigrants, with
their tents and wagons, would be encamped on open spots near the
bank, on their way to the common rendezvous at Independence. On a
rainy day, near sunset, we reached the landing of this place, which
is situated some miles from the river, on the extreme frontier of
Missouri. The scene was characteristic, for here were represented at
one view the most remarkable features of this wild and enterprising
region. On the muddy shore stood some thirty or forty dark slavish-
looking Spaniards, gazing stupidly out from beneath their broad hats.
They were attached to one of the Santa Fe companies, whose wagons
were crowded together on the banks above. In the midst of these,
crouching over a smoldering fire, was a group of Indians, belonging
to a remote Mexican tribe. One or two French hunters from the
mountains with their long hair and buckskin dresses, were looking at
the boat; and seated on a log close at hand were three men, with
rifles lying across their knees. The foremost of these, a tall,
strong figure, with a clear blue eye and an open, intelligent face,
might very well represent that race of restless and intrepid pioneers
whose axes and rifles have opened a path from the Alleghenies to the
western prairies. He was on his way to Oregon, probably a more
congenial field to him than any that now remained on this side the
great plains.

Early on the next morning we reached Kansas, about five hundred miles
from the mouth of the Missouri. Here we landed and leaving our
equipments in charge of my good friend Colonel Chick, whose log-house
was the substitute for a tavern, we set out in a wagon for Westport,
where we hoped to procure mules and horses for the journey.

It was a remarkably fresh and beautiful May morning. The rich and
luxuriant woods through which the miserable road conducted us were
lighted by the bright sunshine and enlivened by a multitude of birds.
We overtook on the way our late fellow-travelers, the Kansas Indians,
who, adorned with all their finery, were proceeding homeward at a
round pace; and whatever they might have seemed on board the boat,
they made a very striking and picturesque feature in the forest
landscape.

Westport was full of Indians, whose little shaggy ponies were tied by
dozens along the houses and fences. Sacs and Foxes, with shaved
heads and painted faces, Shawanoes and Delawares, fluttering in
calico frocks, and turbans, Wyandottes dressed like white men, and a
few wretched Kansas wrapped in old blankets, were strolling about the
streets, or lounging in and out of the shops and houses.

As I stood at the door of the tavern, I saw a remarkable looking
person coming up the street. He had a ruddy face, garnished with the
stumps of a bristly red beard and mustache; on one side of his head
was a round cap with a knob at the top, such as Scottish laborers
sometimes wear; his coat was of a nondescript form, and made of a
gray Scotch plaid, with the fringes hanging all about it; he wore
pantaloons of coarse homespun, and hob-nailed shoes; and to complete
his equipment, a little black pipe was stuck in one corner of his
mouth. In this curious attire, I recognized Captain C. of the
British army, who, with his brother, and Mr. R., an English
gentleman, was bound on a hunting expedition across the continent. I
had seen the captain and his companions at St. Louis. They had now
been for some time at Westport, making preparations for their
departure, and waiting for a re-enforcement, since they were too few
in number to attempt it alone. They might, it is true, have joined
some of the parties of emigrants who were on the point of setting out
for Oregon and California; but they professed great disinclination to
have any connection with the "Kentucky fellows."

The captain now urged it upon us, that we should join forces and
proceed to the mountains in company. Feeling no greater partiality
for the society of the emigrants than they did, we thought the
arrangement an advantageous one, and consented to it. Our future
fellow-travelers had installed themselves in a little log-house,
where we found them all surrounded by saddles, harness, guns,
pistols, telescopes, knives, and in short their complete appointments
for the prairie. R., who professed a taste for natural history, sat
at a table stuffing a woodpecker; the brother of the captain, who was
an Irishman, was splicing a trail-rope on the floor, as he had been
an amateur sailor. The captain pointed out, with much complacency,
the different articles of their outfit. "You see," said he, "that we
are all old travelers. I am convinced that no party ever went upon
the prairie better provided."  The hunter whom they had employed, a
surly looking Canadian, named Sorel, and their muleteer, an American
from St. Louis, were lounging about the building. In a little log
stable close at hand were their horses and mules, selected by the
captain, who was an excellent judge.

The alliance entered into, we left them to complete their
arrangements, while we pushed our own to all convenient speed. The
emigrants for whom our friends professed such contempt were encamped
on the prairie about eight or ten miles distant, to the number of a
thousand or more, and new parties were constantly passing out from
Independence to join them. They were in great confusion, holding
meetings, passing resolutions, and drawing up regulations, but unable
to unite in the choice of leaders to conduct them across the prairie.
Being at leisure one day, I rode over to Independence. The town was
crowded. A multitude of shops had sprung up to furnish the emigrants
and Santa Fe traders with necessaries for their journey; and there
was an incessant hammering and banging from a dozen blacksmiths'
sheds, where the heavy wagons were being repaired, and the horses and
oxen shod. The streets were thronged with men, horses, and mules.
While I was in the town, a train of emigrant wagons from Illinois
passed through, to join the camp on the prairie, and stopped in the
principal street. A multitude of healthy children's faces were
peeping out from under the covers of the wagons. Here and there a
buxom damsel was seated on horseback, holding over her sunburnt face
an old umbrella or a parasol, once gaudy enough but now miserably
faded. The men, very sober-looking countrymen, stood about their
oxen; and as I passed I noticed three old fellows, who, with their
long whips in their hands, were zealously discussing the doctrine of
regeneration. The emigrants, however, are not all of this stamp.
Among them are some of the vilest outcasts in the country. I have
often perplexed myself to divine the various motives that give
impulse to this strange migration; but whatever they may be, whether
an insane hope of a better condition in life, or a desire of shaking
off restraints of law and society, or mere restlessness, certain it
is that multitudes bitterly repent the journey, and after they have
reached the land of promise are happy enough to escape from it.

In the course of seven or eight days we had brought our preparations
near to a close. Meanwhile our friends had completed theirs, and
becoming tired of Westport, they told us that they would set out in
advance and wait at the crossing of the Kansas till we should come
up. Accordingly R. and the muleteers went forward with the wagon and
tent, while the captain and his brother, together with Sorel, and a
trapper named Boisverd, who had joined them, followed with the band
of horses. The commencement of the journey was ominous, for the
captain was scarcely a mile from Westport, riding along in state at
the head of his party, leading his intended buffalo horse by a rope,
when a tremendous thunderstorm came on, and drenched them all to the
skin. They hurried on to reach the place, about seven miles off,
where R. was to have had the camp in readiness to receive them. But
this prudent person, when he saw the storm approaching, had selected
a sheltered glade in the woods, where he pitched his tent, and was
sipping a comfortable cup of coffee, while the captain galloped for
miles beyond through the rain to look for him. At length the storm
cleared away, and the sharp-eyed trapper succeeded in discovering his
tent: R. had by this time finished his coffee, and was seated on a
buffalo robe smoking his pipe. The captain was one of the most easy-
tempered men in existence, so he bore his ill-luck with great
composure, shared the dregs of the coffee with his brother, and lay
down to sleep in his wet clothes.

We ourselves had our share of the deluge. We were leading a pair of
mules to Kansas when the storm broke. Such sharp and incessant
flashes of lightning, such stunning and continuous thunder, I have
never known before. The woods were completely obscured by the
diagonal sheets of rain that fell with a heavy roar, and rose in
spray from the ground; and the streams rose so rapidly that we could
hardly ford them. At length, looming through the rain, we saw the
log-house of Colonel Chick, who received us with his usual bland
hospitality; while his wife, who, though a little soured and
stiffened by too frequent attendance on camp-meetings, was not behind
him in hospitable feeling, supplied us with the means of repairing
our drenched and bedraggled condition. The storm, clearing away at
about sunset, opened a noble prospect from the porch of the colonel's
house, which stands upon a high hill. The sun streamed from the
breaking clouds upon the swift and angry Missouri, and on the immense
expanse of luxuriant forest that stretched from its banks back to the
distant bluffs.

Returning on the next day to Westport, we received a message from the
captain, who had ridden back to deliver it in person, but finding
that we were in Kansas, had intrusted it with an acquaintance of his
named Vogel, who kept a small grocery and liquor shop. Whisky by the
way circulates more freely in Westport than is altogether safe in a
place where every man carries a loaded pistol in his pocket. As we
passed this establishment, we saw Vogel's broad German face and
knavish-looking eyes thrust from his door. He said he had something
to tell us, and invited us to take a dram. Neither his liquor nor
his message was very palatable. The captain had returned to give us
notice that R., who assumed the direction of his party, had
determined upon another route from that agreed upon between us; and
instead of taking the course of the traders, to pass northward by
Fort Leavenworth, and follow the path marked out by the dragoons in
their expedition of last summer. To adopt such a plan without
consulting us, we looked upon as a very high-handed proceeding; but
suppressing our dissatisfaction as well as we could, we made up our
minds to join them at Fort Leavenworth, where they were to wait for
us.

Accordingly, our preparation being now complete, we attempted one
fine morning to commence our journey. The first step was an
unfortunate one. No sooner were our animals put in harness, than the
shaft mule reared and plunged, burst ropes and straps, and nearly
flung the cart into the Missouri. Finding her wholly uncontrollable,
we exchanged her for another, with which we were furnished by our
friend Mr. Boone of Westport, a grandson of Daniel Boone, the
pioneer. This foretaste of prairie experience was very soon followed
by another. Westport was scarcely out of sight, when we encountered
a deep muddy gully, of a species that afterward became but too
familiar to us; and here for the space of an hour or more the car
stuck fast.

CHAPTER II

BREAKING THE ICE

Both Shaw and myself were tolerably inured to the vicissitudes of
traveling. We had experienced them under various forms, and a birch
canoe was as familiar to us as a steamboat. The restlessness, the
love of wilds and hatred of cities, natural perhaps in early years to
every unperverted son of Adam, was not our only motive for
undertaking the present journey. My companion hoped to shake off the
effects of a disorder that had impaired a constitution originally
hardy and robust; and I was anxious to pursue some inquiries relative
to the character and usages of the remote Indian nations, being
already familiar with many of the border tribes.

Emerging from the mud-hole where we last took leave of the reader, we
pursued our way for some time along the narrow track, in the
checkered sunshine and shadow of the woods, till at length, issuing
forth into the broad light, we left behind us the farthest outskirts
of that great forest, that once spread unbroken from the western
plains to the shore of the Atlantic. Looking over an intervening
belt of shrubbery, we saw the green, oceanlike expanse of prairie,
stretching swell over swell to the horizon.

It was a mild, calm spring day; a day when one is more disposed to
musing and reverie than to action, and the softest part of his nature
is apt to gain the ascendency. I rode in advance of the party, as we
passed through the shrubbery, and as a nook of green grass offered a
strong temptation, I dismounted and lay down there. All the trees
and saplings were in flower, or budding into fresh leaf; the red
clusters of the maple-blossoms and the rich flowers of the Indian
apple were there in profusion; and I was half inclined to regret
leaving behind the land of gardens for the rude and stern scenes of
the prairie and the mountains.

Meanwhile the party came in sight from out of the bushes. Foremost
rode Henry Chatillon, our guide and hunter, a fine athletic figure,
mounted on a hardy gray Wyandotte pony. He wore a white blanket-
coat, a broad hat of felt, moccasins, and pantaloons of deerskin,
ornamented along the seams with rows of long fringes. His knife was
stuck in his belt; his bullet-pouch and powder-horn hung at his side,
and his rifle lay before him, resting against the high pommel of his
saddle, which, like all his equipments, had seen hard service, and
was much the worse for wear. Shaw followed close, mounted on a
little sorrel horse, and leading a larger animal by a rope. His
outfit, which resembled mine, had been provided with a view to use
rather than ornament. It consisted of a plain, black Spanish saddle,
with holsters of heavy pistols, a blanket rolled up behind it, and
the trail-rope attached to his horse's neck hanging coiled in front.
He carried a double-barreled smooth-bore, while I boasted a rifle of
some fifteen pounds' weight. At that time our attire, though far
from elegant, bore some marks of civilization, and offered a very
favorable contrast to the inimitable shabbiness of our appearance on
the return journey. A red flannel shirt, belted around the waist
like a frock, then constituted our upper garment; moccasins had
supplanted our failing boots; and the remaining essential portion of
our attire consisted of an extraordinary article, manufactured by a
squaw out of smoked buckskin. Our muleteer, Delorier, brought up the
rear with his cart, waddling ankle-deep in the mud, alternately
puffing at his pipe, and ejaculating in his prairie patois: 'Sacre
enfant de garce!" as one of the mules would seem to recoil before
some abyss of unusual profundity. The cart was of the kind that one
may see by scores around the market-place in Montreal, and had a
white covering to protect the articles within. These were our
provisions and a tent, with ammunition, blankets, and presents for
the Indians.

We were in all four men with eight animals; for besides the spare
horses led by Shaw and myself, an additional mule was driven along
with us as a reserve in case of accident.

After this summing up of our forces, it may not be amiss to glance at
the characters of the two men who accompanied us.

Delorier was a Canadian, with all the characteristics of the true
Jean Baptiste. Neither fatigue, exposure, nor hard labor could ever
impair his cheerfulness and gayety, or his obsequious politeness to
his bourgeois; and when night came he would sit down by the fire,
smoke his pipe, and tell stories with the utmost contentment. In
fact, the prairie was his congenial element. Henry Chatillon was of
a different stamp. When we were at St. Louis, several gentlemen of
the Fur Company had kindly offered to procure for us a hunter and
guide suited for our purposes, and on coming one afternoon to the
office, we found there a tall and exceedingly well-dressed man with a
face so open and frank that it attracted our notice at once. We were
surprised at being told that it was he who wished to guide us to the
mountains. He was born in a little French town near St. Louis, and
from the age of fifteen years had been constantly in the neighborhood
of the Rocky Mountains, employed for the most part by the Company to
supply their forts with buffalo meat. As a hunter he had but one
rival in the whole region, a man named Cimoneau, with whom, to the
honor of both of them, he was on terms of the closest friendship. He
had arrived at St. Louis the day before, from the mountains, where he
had remained for four years; and he now only asked to go and spend a
day with his mother before setting out on another expedition. His
age was about thirty; he was six feet high, and very powerfully and
gracefully molded. The prairies had been his school; he could
neither read nor write, but he had a natural refinement and delicacy
of mind such as is rarely found, even in women. His manly face was a
perfect mirror of uprightness, simplicity, and kindness of heart; he
had, moreover, a keen perception of character and a tact that would
preserve him from flagrant error in any society. Henry had not the
restless energy of an Anglo-American. He was content to take things
as he found them; and his chief fault arose from an excess of easy
generosity, impelling him to give away too profusely ever to thrive
in the world. Yet it was commonly remarked of him, that whatever he
might choose to do with what belonged to himself, the property of
others was always safe in his hands. His bravery was as much
celebrated in the mountains as his skill in hunting; but it is
characteristic of him that in a country where the rifle is the chief
arbiter between man and man, Henry was very seldom involved in
quarrels. Once or twice, indeed, his quiet good-nature had been
mistaken and presumed upon, but the consequences of the error were so
formidable that no one was ever known to repeat it. No better
evidence of the intrepidity of his temper could be wished than the
common report that he had killed more than thirty grizzly bears. He
was a proof of what unaided nature will sometimes do. I have never,
in the city or in the wilderness, met a better man than my noble and
true-hearted friend, Henry Chatillon.

We were soon free of the woods and bushes, and fairly upon the broad
prairie. Now and then a Shawanoe passed us, riding his little shaggy
pony at a "lope"; his calico shirt, his gaudy sash, and the gay
handkerchief bound around his snaky hair fluttering in the wind. At
noon we stopped to rest not far from a little creek replete with
frogs and young turtles. There had been an Indian encampment at the
place, and the framework of their lodges still remained, enabling us
very easily to gain a shelter from the sun, by merely spreading one
or two blankets over them. Thus shaded, we sat upon our saddles, and
Shaw for the first time lighted his favorite Indian pipe; while
Delorier was squatted over a hot bed of coals, shading his eyes with
one hand, and holding a little stick in the other, with which he
regulated the hissing contents of the frying-pan. The horses were
turned to feed among the scattered bushes of a low oozy meadow. A
drowzy springlike sultriness pervaded the air, and the voices of ten
thousand young frogs and insects, just awakened into life, rose in
varied chorus from the creek and the meadows.

Scarcely were we seated when a visitor approached. This was an old
Kansas Indian; a man of distinction, if one might judge from his
dress. His head was shaved and painted red, and from the tuft of
hair remaining on the crown dangled several eagles' feathers, and the
tails of two or three rattlesnakes. His cheeks, too, were daubed
with vermilion; his ears were adorned with green glass pendants; a
collar of grizzly bears' claws surrounded his neck, and several large
necklaces of wampum hung on his breast. Having shaken us by the hand
with a cordial grunt of salutation, the old man, dropping his red
blanket from his shoulders, sat down cross-legged on the ground. In
the absence of liquor we offered him a cup of sweetened water, at
which he ejaculated "Good!" and was beginning to tell us how great a
man he was, and how many Pawnees he had killed, when suddenly a
motley concourse appeared wading across the creek toward us. They
filed past in rapid succession, men, women, and children; some were
on horseback, some on foot, but all were alike squalid and wretched.
Old squaws, mounted astride of shaggy, meager little ponies, with
perhaps one or two snake-eyed children seated behind them, clinging
to their tattered blankets; tall lank young men on foot, with bows
and arrows in their hands; and girls whose native ugliness not all
the charms of glass beads and scarlet cloth could disguise, made up
the procession; although here and there was a man who, like our
visitor, seemed to hold some rank in this respectable community.
They were the dregs of the Kansas nation, who, while their betters
were gone to hunt buffalo, had left the village on a begging
expedition to Westport.

When this ragamuffin horde had passed, we caught our horses, saddled,
harnessed, and resumed our journey. Fording the creek, the low roofs
of a number of rude buildings appeared, rising from a cluster of
groves and woods on the left; and riding up through a long lane, amid
a profusion of wild roses and early spring flowers, we found the log-
church and school-houses belonging to the Methodist Shawanoe Mission.
The Indians were on the point of gathering to a religious meeting.
Some scores of them, tall men in half-civilized dress, were seated on
wooden benches under the trees; while their horses were tied to the
sheds and fences. Their chief, Parks, a remarkably large and
athletic man, was just arrived from Westport, where he owns a trading
establishment. Beside this, he has a fine farm and a considerable
number of slaves. Indeed the Shawanoes have made greater progress in
agriculture than any other tribe on the Missouri frontier; and both
in appearance and in character form a marked contrast to our late
acquaintance, the Kansas.

A few hours' ride brought us to the banks of the river Kansas.
Traversing the woods that lined it, and plowing through the deep
sand, we encamped not far from the bank, at the Lower Delaware
crossing. Our tent was erected for the first time on a meadow close
to the woods, and the camp preparations being complete we began to
think of supper. An old Delaware woman, of some three hundred
pounds' weight, sat in the porch of a little log-house close to the
water, and a very pretty half-breed girl was engaged, under her
superintendence, in feeding a large flock of turkeys that were
fluttering and gobbling about the door. But no offers of money, or
even of tobacco, could induce her to part with one of her favorites;
so I took my rifle, to see if the woods or the river could furnish us
anything. A multitude of quails were plaintively whistling in the
woods and meadows; but nothing appropriate to the rifle was to be
seen, except three buzzards, seated on the spectral limbs of an old
dead sycamore, that thrust itself out over the river from the dense
sunny wall of fresh foliage. Their ugly heads were drawn down
between their shoulders, and they seemed to luxuriate in the soft
sunshine that was pouring from the west. As they offered no
epicurean temptations, I refrained from disturbing their enjoyment;
but contented myself with admiring the calm beauty of the sunset, for
the river, eddying swiftly in deep purple shadows between the
impending woods, formed a wild but tranquillizing scene.

When I returned to the camp I found Shaw and an old Indian seated on
the ground in close conference, passing the pipe between them. The
old man was explaining that he loved the whites, and had an especial
partiality for tobacco. Delorier was arranging upon the ground our
service of tin cups and plates; and as other viands were not to be
had, he set before us a repast of biscuit and bacon, and a large pot
of coffee. Unsheathing our knives, we attacked it, disposed of the
greater part, and tossed the residue to the Indian. Meanwhile our
horses, now hobbled for the first time, stood among the trees, with
their fore-legs tied together, in great disgust and astonishment.
They seemed by no means to relish this foretaste of what was before
them. Mine, in particular, had conceived a moral aversion to the
prairie life. One of them, christened Hendrick, an animal whose
strength and hardihood were his only merits, and who yielded to
nothing but the cogent arguments of the whip, looked toward us with
an indignant countenance, as if he meditated avenging his wrongs with
a kick. The other, Pontiac, a good horse, though of plebeian
lineage, stood with his head drooping and his mane hanging about his
eyes, with the grieved and sulky air of a lubberly boy sent off to
school. Poor Pontiac! his forebodings were but too just; for when I
last heard from him, he was under the lash of an Ogallalla brave, on
a war party against the Crows.

As it grew dark, and the voices of the whip-poor-wills succeeded the
whistle of the quails, we removed our saddles to the tent, to serve
as pillows, spread our blankets upon the ground, and prepared to
bivouac for the first time that season. Each man selected the place
in the tent which he was to occupy for the journey. To Delorier,
however, was assigned the cart, into which he could creep in wet
weather, and find a much better shelter than his bourgeois enjoyed in
the tent.

The river Kansas at this point forms the boundary line between the
country of the Shawanoes and that of the Delawares. We crossed it on
the following day, rafting over our horses and equipage with much
difficulty, and unloading our cart in order to make our way up the
steep ascent on the farther bank. It was a Sunday moming; warm,
tranquil and bright; and a perfect stillness reigned over the rough
inclosures and neglected fields of the Delawares, except the
ceaseless hum and chirruping of myriads of insects. Now and then, an
Indian rode past on his way to the meeting-house, or through the
dilapidated entrance of some shattered log-house an old woman might
be discerned, enjoying all the luxury of idleness. There was no
village bell, for the Delawares have none; and yet upon that forlorn
and rude settlement was the same spirit of Sabbath repose and
tranquillity as in some little New England village among the
mountains of New Hampshire or the Vermont woods.

Having at present no leisure for such reflections, we pursued our
journey. A military road led from this point to Fort Leavenworth,
and for many miles the farms and cabins of the Delawares were
scattered at short intervals on either hand. The little rude
structures of logs, erected usually on the borders of a tract of
woods, made a picturesque feature in the landscape. But the scenery
needed no foreign aid. Nature had done enough for it; and the
alteration of rich green prairies and groves that stood in clusters
or lined the banks of the numerous little streams, had all the
softened and polished beauty of a region that has been for centuries
under the hand of man. At that early season, too, it was in the
height of its freshness and luxuriance. The woods were flushed with
the red buds of the maple; there were frequent flowering shrubs
unknown in the east; and the green swells of the prairies were
thickly studded with blossoms.

Encamping near a spring by the side of a hill, we resumed our journey
in the morning, and early in the afternoon had arrived within a few
miles of Fort Leavenworth. The road crossed a stream densely
bordered with trees, and running in the bottom of a deep woody
hollow. We were about to descend into it, when a wild and confused
procession appeared, passing through the water below, and coming up
the steep ascent toward us. We stopped to let them pass. They were
Delawares, just returned from a hunting expedition. All, both men
and women, were mounted on horseback, and drove along with them a
considerable number of pack mules, laden with the furs they had
taken, together with the buffalo robes, kettles, and other articles
of their traveling equipment, which as well as their clothing and
their weapons, had a worn and dingy aspect, as if they had seen hard
service of late. At the rear of the party was an old man, who, as he
came up, stopped his horse to speak to us. He rode a little tough
shaggy pony, with mane and tail well knotted with burrs, and a rusty
Spanish bit in its mouth, to which, by way of reins, was attached a
string of raw hide. His saddle, robbed probably from a Mexican, had
no covering, being merely a tree of the Spanish form, with a piece of
grizzly bear's skin laid over it, a pair of rude wooden stirrups
attached, and in the absence of girth, a thong of hide passing around
the horse's belly. The rider's dark features and keen snaky eyes
were unequivocally Indian. He wore a buckskin frock, which, like his
fringed leggings, was well polished and blackened by grease and long
service; and an old handkerchief was tied around his head. Resting
on the saddle before him lay his rifle; a weapon in the use of which
the Delawares are skillful; though from its weight, the distant
prairie Indians are too lazy to carry it.

"Who's your chief?" he immediately inquired.

Henry Chatillon pointed to us. The old Delaware fixed his eyes
intently upon us for a moment, and then sententiously remarked:

"No good! Too young!"  With this flattering comment he left us, and
rode after his people.

This tribe, the Delawares, once the peaceful allies of William Penn,
the tributaries of the conquering Iroquois, are now the most
adventurous and dreaded warriors upon the prairies. They make war
upon remote tribes the very names of which were unknown to their
fathers in their ancient seats in Pennsylvania; and they push these
new quarrels with true Indian rancor, sending out their little war
parties as far as the Rocky Mountains, and into the Mexican
territories. Their neighbors and former confederates, the Shawanoes,
who are tolerable farmers, are in a prosperous condition; but the
Delawares dwindle every year, from the number of men lost in their
warlike expeditions.

Soon after leaving this party, we saw, stretching on the right, the
forests that follow the course of the Missouri, and the deep woody
channel through which at this point it runs. At a distance in front
were the white barracks of Fort Leavenworth, just visible through the
trees upon an eminence above a bend of the river. A wide green
meadow, as level as a lake, lay between us and the Missouri, and upon
this, close to a line of trees that bordered a little brook, stood
the tent of the captain and his companions, with their horses feeding
around it, but they themselves were invisible. Wright, their
muleteer, was there, seated on the tongue of the wagon, repairing his
harness. Boisverd stood cleaning his rifle at the door of the tent,
and Sorel lounged idly about. On closer examination, however, we
discovered the captain's brother, Jack, sitting in the tent, at his
old occupation of splicing trail-ropes. He welcomed us in his broad
Irish brogue, and said that his brother was fishing in the river, and
R. gone to the garrison. They returned before sunset. Meanwhile we
erected our own tent not far off, and after supper a council was
held, in which it was resolved to remain one day at Fort Leavenworth,
and on the next to bid a final adieu to the frontier: or in the
phraseology of the region, to "jump off."  Our deliberations were
conducted by the ruddy light from a distant swell of the prairie,
where the long dry grass of last summer was on fire.

CHAPTER III

FORT LEAVENWORTH

On the next morning we rode to Fort Leavenworth. Colonel, now
General, Kearny, to whom I had had the honor of an introduction when
at St. Louis, was just arrived, and received us at his headquarters
with the high-bred courtesy habitual to him. Fort Leavenworth is in
fact no fort, being without defensive works, except two block-houses.
No rumors of war had as yet disturbed its tranquillity. In the
square grassy area, surrounded by barracks and the quarters of the
officers, the men were passing and repassing, or lounging among the
trees; although not many weeks afterward it presented a different
scene; for here the very off-scourings of the frontier were
congregated, to be marshaled for the expedition against Santa Fe.

Passing through the garrison, we rode toward the Kickapoo village,
five or six miles beyond. The path, a rather dubious and uncertain
one, led us along the ridge of high bluffs that bordered the
Missouri; and by looking to the right or to the left, we could enjoy
a strange contrast of opposite scenery. On the left stretched the
prairie, rising into swells and undulations, thickly sprinkled with
groves, or gracefully expanding into wide grassy basins of miles in
extent; while its curvatures, swelling against the horizon, were
often surmounted by lines of sunny woods; a scene to which the
freshness of the season and the peculiar mellowness of the atmosphere
gave additional softness. Below us, on the right, was a tract of
ragged and broken woods. We could look down on the summits of the
trees, some living and some dead; some erect, others leaning at every
angle, and others still piled in masses together by the passage of a
hurricane. Beyond their extreme verge, the turbid waters of the
Missouri were discernible through the boughs, rolling powerfully
along at the foot of the woody declivities of its farther bank.

The path soon after led inland; and as we crossed an open meadow we
saw a cluster of buildings on a rising ground before us, with a crowd
of people surrounding them. They were the storehouse, cottage, and
stables of the Kickapoo trader's establishment. Just at that moment,
as it chanced, he was beset with half the Indians of the settlement.
They had tied their wretched, neglected little ponies by dozens along
the fences and outhouses, and were either lounging about the place,
or crowding into the trading house. Here were faces of various
colors; red, green, white, and black, curiously intermingled and
disposed over the visage in a variety of patterns. Calico shirts,
red and blue blankets, brass ear-rings, wampum necklaces, appeared in
profusion. The trader was a blue-eyed open-faced man who neither in
his manners nor his appearance betrayed any of the roughness of the
frontier; though just at present he was obliged to keep a lynx eye on
his suspicious customers, who, men and women, were climbing on his
counter and seating themselves among his boxes and bales.

The village itself was not far off, and sufficiently illustrated the
condition of its unfortunate and self-abandoned occupants. Fancy to
yourself a little swift stream, working its devious way down a woody
valley; sometimes wholly hidden under logs and fallen trees,
sometimes issuing forth and spreading into a broad, clear pool; and
on its banks in little nooks cleared away among the trees, miniature
log-houses in utter ruin and neglect. A labyrinth of narrow,
obstructed paths connected these habitations one with another.
Sometimes we met a stray calf, a pig or a pony, belonging to some of
the villagers, who usually lay in the sun in front of their
dwellings, and looked on us with cold, suspicious eyes as we
approached. Farther on, in place of the log-huts of the Kickapoos,
we found the pukwi lodges of their neighbors, the Pottawattamies,
whose condition seemed no better than theirs.

Growing tired at last, and exhausted by the excessive heat and
sultriness of the day, we returned to our friend, the trader. By
this time the crowd around him had dispersed, and left him at
leisure. He invited us to his cottage, a little white-and-green
building, in the style of the old French settlements; and ushered us
into a neat, well-furnished room. The blinds were closed, and the
heat and glare of the sun excluded; the room was as cool as a cavern.
It was neatly carpeted too and furnished in a manner that we hardly
expected on the frontier. The sofas, chairs, tables, and a well-
filled bookcase would not have disgraced an Eastern city; though
there were one or two little tokens that indicated the rather
questionable civilization of the region. A pistol, loaded and
capped, lay on the mantelpiece; and through the glass of the
bookcase, peeping above the works of John Milton glittered the handle
of a very mischievous-looking knife.

Our host went out, and returned with iced water, glasses, and a
bottle of excellent claret; a refreshment most welcome in the extreme
heat of the day; and soon after appeared a merry, laughing woman, who
must have been, a year of two before, a very rich and luxuriant
specimen of Creole beauty. She came to say that lunch was ready in
the next room. Our hostess evidently lived on the sunny side of
life, and troubled herself with none of its cares. She sat down and
entertained us while we were at table with anecdotes of fishing
parties, frolics, and the officers at the fort. Taking leave at
length of the hospitable trader and his friend, we rode back to the
garrison.

Shaw passed on to the camp, while I remained to call upon Colonel
Kearny. I found him still at table. There sat our friend the
captain, in the same remarkable habiliments in which we saw him at
Westport; the black pipe, however, being for the present laid aside.
He dangled his little cap in his hand and talked of steeple-chases,
touching occasionally upon his anticipated exploits in buffalo-
hunting. There, too, was R., somewhat more elegantly attired. For
the last time we tasted the luxuries of civilization, and drank
adieus to it in wine good enough to make us almost regret the leave-
taking. Then, mounting, we rode together to the camp, where
everything was in readiness for departure on the morrow.

CHAPTER IV

"JUMPING OFF"

The reader need not be told that John Bull never leaves home without
encumbering himself with the greatest possible load of luggage. Our
companions were no exception to the rule. They had a wagon drawn by
six mules and crammed with provisions for six months, besides
ammunition enough for a regiment; spare rifles and fowling-pieces,
ropes and harness; personal baggage, and a miscellaneous assortment
of articles, which produced infinite embarrassment on the journey.
They had also decorated their persons with telescopes and portable
compasses, and carried English double-barreled rifles of sixteen to
the pound caliber, slung to their saddles in dragoon fashion.

By sunrise on the 23d of May we had breakfasted; the tents were
leveled, the animals saddled and harnessed, and all was prepared.
"Avance donc! get up!" cried Delorier from his seat in front of the
cart. Wright, our friend's muleteer, after some swearing and
lashing, got his insubordinate train in motion, and then the whole
party filed from the ground. Thus we bade a long adieu to bed and
board, and the principles of Blackstone's Commentaries. The day was
a most auspicious one; and yet Shaw and I felt certain misgivings,
which in the sequel proved but too well founded. We had just learned
that though R. had taken it upon him to adopt this course without
consulting us, not a single man in the party was acquainted with it;
and the absurdity of our friend's high-handed measure very soon
became manifest. His plan was to strike the trail of several
companies of dragoons, who last summer had made an expedition under
Colonel Kearny to Fort Laramie, and by this means to reach the grand
trail of the Oregon emigrants up the Platte.

We rode for an hour or two when a familiar cluster of buildings
appeared on a little hill. "Hallo!" shouted the Kickapoo trader from
over his fence. "Where are you going?"  A few rather emphatic
exclamations might have been heard among us, when we found that we
had gone miles out of our way, and were not advanced an inch toward
the Rocky Mountains. So we turned in the direction the trader
indicated, and with the sun for a guide, began to trace a "bee line"
across the prairies. We struggled through copses and lines of wood;
we waded brooks and pools of water; we traversed prairies as green as
an emerald, expanding before us for mile after mile; wider and more
wild than the wastes Mazeppa rode over:

    "Man nor brute,
     Nor dint of hoof, nor print of foot,
     Lay in the wild luxuriant soil;
     No sign of travel; none of toil;
     The very air was mute."

Riding in advance, we passed over one of these great plains; we
looked back and saw the line of scattered horsemen stretching for a
mile or more; and far in the rear against the horizon, the white
wagons creeping slowly along. "Here we are at last!" shouted the
captain. And in truth we had struck upon the traces of a large body
of horse. We turned joyfully and followed this new course, with
tempers somewhat improved; and toward sunset encamped on a high swell
of the prairie, at the foot of which a lazy stream soaked along
through clumps of rank grass. It was getting dark. We turned the
horses loose to feed. "Drive down the tent-pickets hard," said Henry
Chatillon, "it is going to blow."  We did so, and secured the tent as
well as we could; for the sky had changed totally, and a fresh damp
smell in the wind warned us that a stormy night was likely to succeed
the hot clear day. The prairie also wore a new aspect, and its vast
swells had grown black and somber under the shadow of the clouds.
The thunder soon began to growl at a distance. Picketing and
hobbling the horses among the rich grass at the foot of the slope,
where we encamped, we gained a shelter just as the rain began to
fall; and sat at the opening of the tent, watching the proceedings of
the captain. In defiance of the rain he was stalking among the
horses, wrapped in an old Scotch plaid. An extreme solicitude
tormented him, lest some of his favorites should escape, or some
accident should befall them; and he cast an anxious eye toward three
wolves who were sneaking along over the dreary surface of the plain,
as if he dreaded some hostile demonstration on their part.

On the next morning we had gone but a mile or two, when we came to an
extensive belt of woods, through the midst of which ran a stream,
wide, deep, and of an appearance particularly muddy and treacherous.
Delorier was in advance with his cart; he jerked his pipe from his
mouth, lashed his mules, and poured forth a volley of Canadian
ejaculations. In plunged the cart, but midway it stuck fast.
Delorier leaped out knee-deep in water, and by dint of sacres and a
vigorous application of the whip, he urged the mules out of the
slough. Then approached the long team and heavy wagon of our
friends; but it paused on the brink.

"Now my advice is--" began the captain, who had been anxiously
contemplating the muddy gulf.

"Drive on!" cried R.

But Wright, the muleteer, apparently had not as yet decided the point
in his own mind; and he sat still in his seat on one of the shaft-
mules, whistling in a low contemplative strain to himself.

"My advice is," resumed the captain, "that we unload; for I'll bet
any man five pounds that if we try to go through, we shall stick
fast."

"By the powers, we shall stick fast!" echoed Jack, the captain's
brother, shaking his large head with an air of firm conviction.

"Drive on! drive on!" cried R. petulantly.

"Well," observed the captain, turning to us as we sat looking on,
much edified by this by-play among our confederates, "I can only give
my advice and if people won't be reasonable, why, they won't; that's
all!"

Meanwhile Wright had apparently made up his mind; for he suddenly
began to shout forth a volley of oaths and curses, that, compared
with the French imprecations of Delorier, sounded like the roaring of
heavy cannon after the popping and sputtering of a bunch of Chinese
crackers. At the same time he discharged a shower of blows upon his
mules, who hastily dived into the mud and drew the wagon lumbering
after them. For a moment the issue was dubious. Wright writhed
about in his saddle, and swore and lashed like a madman; but who can
count on a team of half-broken mules? At the most critical point,
when all should have been harmony and combined effort, the perverse
brutes fell into lamentable disorder, and huddled together in
confusion on the farther bank. There was the wagon up to the hub in
mud, and visibly settling every instant. There was nothing for it
but to unload; then to dig away the mud from before the wheels with a
spade, and lay a causeway of bushes and branches. This agreeable
labor accomplished, the wagon at last emerged; but if I mention that
some interruption of this sort occurred at least four or five times a
day for a fortnight, the reader will understand that our progress
toward the Platte was not without its obstacles.

We traveled six or seven miles farther, and "nooned" near a brook.
On the point of resuming our journey, when the horses were all driven
down to water, my homesick charger, Pontiac, made a sudden leap
across, and set off at a round trot for the settlements. I mounted
my remaining horse, and started in pursuit. Making a circuit, I
headed the runaway, hoping to drive him back to camp; but he
instantly broke into a gallop, made a wide tour on the prairie, and
got past me again. I tried this plan repeatedly, with the same
result; Pontiac was evidently disgusted with the prairie; so I
abandoned it, and tried another, trotting along gently behind him, in
hopes that I might quietly get near enough to seize the trail-rope
which was fastened to his neck, and dragged about a dozen feet behind
him. The chase grew interesting. For mile after mile I followed the
rascal, with the utmost care not to alarm him, and gradually got
nearer, until at length old Hendrick's nose was fairly brushed by the
whisking tail of the unsuspecting Pontiac. Without drawing rein, I
slid softly to the ground; but my long heavy rifle encumbered me, and
the low sound it made in striking the horn of the saddle startled
him; he pricked up his ears, and sprang off at a run. "My friend,"
thought I, remounting, "do that again, and I will shoot you!"

Fort Leavenworth was about forty miles distant, and thither I
determined to follow him. I made up my mind to spend a solitary and
supperless night, and then set out again in the morning. One hope,
however, remained. The creek where the wagon had stuck was just
before us; Pontiac might be thirsty with his run, and stop there to
drink. I kept as near to him as possible, taking every precaution
not to alarm him again; and the result proved as I had hoped: for he
walked deliberately among the trees, and stooped down to the water.
I alighted, dragged old Hendrick through the mud, and with a feeling
of infinite satisfaction picked up the slimy trail-rope and twisted
it three times round my hand. "Now let me see you get away again!" I
thought, as I remounted. But Pontiac was exceedingly reluctant to
turn back; Hendrick, too, who had evidently flattered himself with
vain hopes, showed the utmost repugnance, and grumbled in a manner
peculiar to himself at being compelled to face about. A smart cut of
the whip restored his cheerfulness; and dragging the recovered truant
behind, I set out in search of the camp. An hour or two elapsed,
when, near sunset, I saw the tents, standing on a rich swell of the
prairie, beyond a line of woods, while the bands of horses were
feeding in a low meadow close at hand. There sat Jack C., cross-
legged, in the sun, splicing a trail-rope, and the rest were lying on
the grass, smoking and telling stories. That night we enjoyed a
serenade from the wolves, more lively than any with which they had
yet favored us; and in the morning one of the musicians appeared, not
many rods from the tents, quietly seated among the horses, looking at
us with a pair of large gray eyes; but perceiving a rifle leveled at
him, he leaped up and made off in hot haste.

I pass by the following day or two of our journey, for nothing
occurred worthy of record. Should any one of my readers ever be
impelled to visit the prairies, and should he choose the route of the
Platte (the best, perhaps, that can be adopted), I can assure him
that he need not think to enter at once upon the paradise of his
imagination. A dreary preliminary, protracted crossing of the
threshold awaits him before he finds himself fairly upon the verge of
the "great American desert," those barren wastes, the haunts of the
buffalo and the Indian, where the very shadow of civilization lies a
hundred leagues behind him. The intervening country, the wide and
fertile belt that extends for several hundred miles beyond the
extreme frontier, will probably answer tolerably well to his
preconceived ideas of the prairie; for this it is from which
picturesque tourists, painters, poets, and novelists, who have seldom
penetrated farther, have derived their conceptions of the whole
region. If he has a painter's eye, he may find his period of
probation not wholly void of interest. The scenery, though tame, is
graceful and pleasing. Here are level plains, too wide for the eye
to measure green undulations, like motionless swells of the ocean;
abundance of streams, followed through all their windings by lines of
woods and scattered groves. But let him be as enthusiastic as he
may, he will find enough to damp his ardor. His wagons will stick in
the mud; his horses will break loose; harness will give way, and
axle-trees prove unsound. His bed will be a soft one, consisting
often of black mud, of the richest consistency. As for food, he must
content himself with biscuit and salt provisions; for strange as it
may seem, this tract of country produces very little game. As he
advances, indeed, he will see, moldering in the grass by his path,
the vast antlers of the elk, and farther on, the whitened skulls of
the buffalo, once swarming over this now deserted region. Perhaps,
like us, he may journey for a fortnight, and see not so much as the
hoof-print of a deer; in the spring, not even a prairie hen is to be
had.

Yet, to compensate him for this unlooked-for deficiency of game, he
will find himself beset with "varmints" innumerable. The wolves will
entertain him with a concerto at night, and skulk around him by day,
just beyond rifle shot; his horse will step into badger-holes; from
every marsh and mud puddle will arise the bellowing, croaking, and
trilling of legions of frogs, infinitely various in color, shape and
dimensions. A profusion of snakes will glide away from under his
horse's feet, or quietly visit him in his tent at night; while the
pertinacious humming of unnumbered mosquitoes will banish sleep from
his eyelids. When thirsty with a long ride in the scorching sun over
some boundless reach of prairie, he comes at length to a pool of
water, and alights to drink, he discovers a troop of young tadpoles
sporting in the bottom of his cup. Add to this, that all the morning
the hot sun beats upon him with sultry, penetrating heat, and that,
with provoking regularity, at about four o'clock in the afternoon, a
thunderstorm rises and drenches him to the skin. Such being the
charms of this favored region, the reader will easily conceive the
extent of our gratification at learning that for a week we had been
journeying on the wrong track! How this agreeable discovery was made
I will presently explain.

One day, after a protracted morning's ride, we stopped to rest at
noon upon the open prairie. No trees were in sight; but close at
hand, a little dribbling brook was twisting from side to side through
a hollow; now forming holes of stagnant water, and now gliding over
the mud in a scarcely perceptible current, among a growth of sickly
bushes, and great clumps of tall rank grass. The day was excessively
hot and oppressive. The horses and mules were rolling on the prairie
to refresh themselves, or feeding among the bushes in the hollow. We
had dined; and Delorier, puffing at his pipe, knelt on the grass,
scrubbing our service of tin plate. Shaw lay in the shade, under the
cart, to rest for a while, before the word should be given to "catch
up."  Henry Chatillon, before lying down, was looking about for signs
of snakes, the only living things that he feared, and uttering
various ejaculations of disgust, at finding several suspicious-
looking holes close to the cart. I sat leaning against the wheel in
a scanty strip of shade, making a pair of hobbles to replace those
which my contumacious steed Pontiac had broken the night before. The
camp of our friends, a rod or two distant, presented the same scene
of lazy tranquillity.

"Hallo!" cried Henry, looking up from his inspection of the snake-
holes, "here comes the old captain!"

The captain approached, and stood for a moment contemplating us in
silence.

"I say, Parkman," he began, "look at Shaw there, asleep under the
cart, with the tar dripping off the hub of the wheel on his
shoulder!"

At this Shaw got up, with his eyes half opened, and feeling the part
indicated, he found his hand glued fast to his red flannel shirt.

"He'll look well when he gets among the squaws, won't he?" observed
the captain, with a grin.

He then crawled under the cart, and began to tell stories of which
his stock was inexhaustible. Yet every moment he would glance
nervously at the horses. At last he jumped up in great excitement.
"See that horse! There--that fellow just walking over the hill! By
Jove; he's off. It's your big horse, Shaw; no it isn't, it's Jack's!
Jack! Jack! hallo, Jack!"  Jack thus invoked, jumped up and stared
vacantly at us.

"Go and catch your horse, if you don't want to lose him!" roared the
captain.

Jack instantly set off at a run through the grass, his broad
pantaloons flapping about his feet. The captain gazed anxiously till
he saw that the horse was caught; then he sat down, with a
countenance of thoughtfulness and care.

"I tell you what it is," he said, "this will never do at all. We
shall lose every horse in the band someday or other, and then a
pretty plight we should be in! Now I am convinced that the only way
for us is to have every man in the camp stand horse-guard in rotation
whenever we stop. Supposing a hundred Pawnees should jump up out of
that ravine, all yelling and flapping their buffalo robes, in the way
they do? Why, in two minutes not a hoof would be in sight."  We
reminded the captain that a hundred Pawnees would probably demolish
the horse-guard, if he were to resist their depredations.

"At any rate," pursued the captain, evading the point, "our whole
system is wrong; I'm convinced of it; it is totally unmilitary. Why,
the way we travel, strung out over the prairie for a mile, an enemy
might attack the foremost men, and cut them off before the rest could
come up."

"We are not in an enemy's country, yet," said Shaw; "when we are,
we'll travel together."

"Then," said the captain, "we might be attacked in camp. We've no
sentinels; we camp in disorder; no precautions at all to guard
against surprise. My own convictions are that we ought to camp in a
hollow square, with the fires in the center; and have sentinels, and
a regular password appointed for every night. Besides, there should
be vedettes, riding in advance, to find a place for the camp and give
warning of an enemy. These are my convictions. I don't want to
dictate to any man. I give advice to the best of my judgment, that's
all; and then let people do as they please."

We intimated that perhaps it would be as well to postpone such
burdensome precautions until there should be some actual need of
them; but he shook his head dubiously. The captain's sense of
military propriety had been severely shocked by what he considered
the irregular proceedings of the party; and this was not the first
time he had expressed himself upon the subject. But his convictions
seldom produced any practical results. In the present case, he
contented himself, as usual, with enlarging on the importance of his
suggestions, and wondering that they were not adopted. But his plan
of sending out vedettes seemed particularly dear to him; and as no
one else was disposed to second his views on this point, he took it
into his head to ride forward that afternoon, himself.

"Come, Parkman," said he, "will you go with me?"

We set out together, and rode a mile or two in advance. The captain,
in the course of twenty years' service in the British army, had seen
something of life; one extensive side of it, at least, he had enjoyed
the best opportunities for studying; and being naturally a pleasant
fellow, he was a very entertaining companion. He cracked jokes and
told stories for an hour or two; until, looking back, we saw the
prairie behind us stretching away to the horizon, without a horseman
or a wagon in sight.

"Now," said the captain, "I think the vedettes had better stop till
the main body comes up."

I was of the same opinion. There was a thick growth of woods just
before us, with a stream running through them. Having crossed this,
we found on the other side a fine level meadow, half encircled by the
trees; and fastening our horses to some bushes, we sat down on the
grass; while, with an old stump of a tree for a target, I began to
display the superiority of the renowned rifle of the back woods over
the foreign innovation borne by the captain. At length voices could
be heard in the distance behind the trees.

"There they come!" said the captain: "let's go and see how they get
through the creek."

We mounted and rode to the bank of the stream, where the trail
crossed it. It ran in a deep hollow, full of trees; as we looked
down, we saw a confused crowd of horsemen riding through the water;
and among the dingy habiliment of our party glittered the uniforms of
four dragoons.

Shaw came whipping his horse up the back, in advance of the rest,
with a somewhat indignant countenance. The first word he spoke was a
blessing fervently invoked on the head of R., who was riding, with a
crest-fallen air, in the rear. Thanks to the ingenious devices of
the gentleman, we had missed the track entirely, and wandered, not
toward the Platte, but to the village of the Iowa Indians. This we
learned from the dragoons, who had lately deserted from Fort
Leavenworth. They told us that our best plan now was to keep to the
northward until we should strike the trail formed by several parties
of Oregon emigrants, who had that season set out from St. Joseph's in
Missouri.

In extremely bad temper, we encamped on this ill-starred spot; while
the deserters, whose case admitted of no delay rode rapidly forward.
On the day following, striking the St. Joseph's trail, we turned our
horses' heads toward Fort Laramie, then about seven hundred miles to
the westward.

CHAPTER V

"THE BIG BLUE"

The great medley of Oregon and California emigrants, at their camps
around Independence, had heard reports that several additional
parties were on the point of setting out from St. Joseph's farther to
the northward. The prevailing impression was that these were
Mormons, twenty-three hundred in number; and a great alarm was
excited in consequence. The people of Illinois and Missouri, who
composed by far the greater part of the emigrants, have never been on
the best terms with the "Latter Day Saints"; and it is notorious
throughout the country how much blood has been spilt in their feuds,
even far within the limits of the settlements. No one could predict
what would be the result, when large armed bodies of these fanatics
should encounter the most impetuous and reckless of their old enemies
on the broad prairie, far beyond the reach of law or military force.
The women and children at Independence raised a great outcry; the men
themselves were seriously alarmed; and, as I learned, they sent to
Colonel Kearny, requesting an escort of dragoons as far as the
Platte. This was refused; and as the sequel proved, there was no
occasion for it. The St. Joseph's emigrants were as good Christians
and as zealous Mormon-haters as the rest; and the very few families
of the "Saints" who passed out this season by the route of the Platte
remained behind until the great tide of emigration had gone by;
standing in quite as much awe of the "gentiles" as the latter did of
them.

We were now, as I before mentioned, upon this St. Joseph's trail. It
was evident, by the traces, that large parties were a few days in
advance of us; and as we too supposed them to be Mormons, we had some
apprehension of interruption.

The journey was somewhat monotonous. One day we rode on for hours,
without seeing a tree or a bush; before, behind, and on either side,
stretched the vast expanse, rolling in a succession of graceful
swells, covered with the unbroken carpet of fresh green grass. Here
and there a crow, or a raven, or a turkey-buzzard, relieved the
uniformity.

"What shall we do to-night for wood and water?" we began to ask of
each other; for the sun was within an hour of setting. At length a
dark green speck appeared, far off on the right; it was the top of a
tree, peering over a swell of the prairie; and leaving the trail, we
made all haste toward it. It proved to be the vanguard of a cluster
of bushes and low trees, that surrounded some pools of water in an
extensive hollow; so we encamped on the rising ground near it.

Shaw and I were sitting in the tent, when Delorier thrust his brown
face and old felt hat into the opening, and dilating his eyes to
their utmost extent, announced supper. There were the tin cups and
the iron spoons, arranged in military order on the grass, and the
coffee-pot predominant in the midst. The meal was soon dispatched;
but Henry Chatillon still sat cross-legged, dallying with the remnant
of his coffee, the beverage in universal use upon the prairie, and an
especial favorite with him. He preferred it in its virgin flavor,
unimpaired by sugar or cream; and on the present occasion it met his
entire approval, being exceedingly strong, or, as he expressed it,
"right black."

It was a rich and gorgeous sunset--an American sunset; and the ruddy
glow of the sky was reflected from some extensive pools of water
among the shadowy copses in the meadow below.

"I must have a bath to-night," said Shaw. "How is it, Delorier? Any
chance for a swim down here?"

"Ah! I cannot tell; just as you please, monsieur," replied Delorier,
shrugging his shoulders, perplexed by his ignorance of English, and
extremely anxious to conform in all respects to the opinion and
wishes of his bourgeois.

"Look at his moccasion," said I. "It has evidently been lately
immersed in a profound abyss of black mud."

"Come," said Shaw; "at any rate we can see for ourselves."

We set out together; and as we approached the bushes, which were at
some distance, we found the ground becoming rather treacherous. We
could only get along by stepping upon large clumps of tall rank
grass, with fathomless gulfs between, like innumerable little quaking
islands in an ocean of mud, where a false step would have involved
our boots in a catastrophe like that which had befallen Delorier's
moccasins. The thing looked desperate; we separated, so as to search
in different directions, Shaw going off to the right, while I kept
straight forward. At last I came to the edge of the bushes: they
were young waterwillows, covered with their caterpillar-like
blossoms, but intervening between them and the last grass clump was a
black and deep slough, over which, by a vigorous exertion, I
contrived to jump. Then I shouldered my way through the willows,
tramping them down by main force, till I came to a wide stream of
water, three inches deep, languidly creeping along over a bottom of
sleek mud. My arrival produced a great commotion. A huge green
bull-frog uttered an indignant croak, and jumped off the bank with a
loud splash: his webbed feet twinkled above the surface, as he jerked
them energetically upward, and I could see him ensconcing himself in
the unresisting slime at the bottom, whence several large air bubbles
struggled lazily to the top. Some little spotted frogs instantly
followed the patriarch's example; and then three turtles, not larger
than a dollar, tumbled themselves off a broad "lily pad," where they
had been reposing. At the same time a snake, gayly striped with
black and yellow, glided out from the bank, and writhed across to the
other side; and a small stagnant pool into which my foot had
inadvertently pushed a stone was instantly alive with a congregation
of black tadpoles.

"Any chance for a bath, where you are?" called out Shaw, from a
distance.

The answer was not encouraging. I retreated through the willows, and
rejoining my companion, we proceeded to push our researches in
company. Not far on the right, a rising ground, covered with trees
and bushes, seemed to sink down abruptly to the water, and give hope
of better success; so toward this we directed our steps. When we
reached the place we found it no easy matter to get along between the
hill and the water, impeded as we were by a growth of stiff,
obstinate young birch-trees, laced together by grapevines. In the
twilight, we now and then, to support ourselves, snatched at the
touch-me-not stem of some ancient sweet-brier. Shaw, who was in
advance, suddenly uttered a somewhat emphatic monosyllable; and
looking up I saw him with one hand grasping a sapling, and one foot
immersed in the water, from which he had forgotten to withdraw it,
his whole attention being engaged in contemplating the movements of a
water-snake, about five feet long, curiously checkered with black and
green, who was deliberately swimming across the pool. There being no
stick or stone at hand to pelt him with, we looked at him for a time
in silent disgust; and then pushed forward. Our perseverence was at
last rewarded; for several rods farther on, we emerged upon a little
level grassy nook among the brushwood, and by an extraordinary
dispensation of fortune, the weeds and floating sticks, which
elsewhere covered the pool, seemed to have drawn apart, and left a
few yards of clear water just in front of this favored spot. We
sounded it with a stick; it was four feet deep; we lifted a specimen
in our cupped hands; it seemed reasonably transparent, so we decided
that the time for action was arrived. But our ablutions were
suddenly interrupted by ten thousand punctures, like poisoned
needles, and the humming of myriads of over-grown mosquitoes, rising
in all directions from their native mud and slime and swarming to the
feast. We were fain to beat a retreat with all possible speed.

We made toward the tents, much refreshed by the bath which the heat
of the weather, joined to our prejudices, had rendered very
desirable.

"What's the matter with the captain? look at him!" said Shaw. The
captain stood alone on the prairie, swinging his hat violently around
his head, and lifting first one foot and then the other, without
moving from the spot. First he looked down to the ground with an air
of supreme abhorrence; then he gazed upward with a perplexed and
indignant countenance, as if trying to trace the flight of an unseen
enemy. We called to know what was the matter; but he replied only by
execrations directed against some unknown object. We approached,
when our ears were saluted by a droning sound, as if twenty bee-hives
had been overturned at once. The air above was full of large black
insects, in a state of great commotion, and multitudes were flying
about just above the tops of the grass blades.

"Don't be afraid," called the captain, observing us recoil. "The
brutes won't sting."

At this I knocked one down with my hat, and discovered him to be no
other than a "dorbug"; and looking closer, we found the ground
thickly perforated with their holes.

We took a hasty leave of this flourishing colony, and walking up the
rising ground to the tents, found Delorier's fire still glowing
brightly. We sat down around it, and Shaw began to expatiate on the
admirable facilities for bathing that we had discovered, and
recommended the captain by all means to go down there before
breakfast in the morning. The captain was in the act of remarking
that he couldn't have believed it possible, when he suddenly
interrupted himself, and clapped his hand to his cheek, exclaiming
that "those infernal humbugs were at him again."  In fact, we began
to hear sounds as if bullets were humming over our heads. In a
moment something rapped me sharply on the forehead, then upon the
neck, and immediately I felt an indefinite number of sharp wiry claws
in active motion, as if their owner were bent on pushing his
explorations farther. I seized him, and dropped him into the fire.
Our party speedily broke up, and we adjourned to our respective
tents, where, closing the opening fast, we hoped to be exempt from
invasion. But all precaution was fruitless. The dorbugs hummed
through the tent, and marched over our faces until day-light; when,
opening our blankets, we found several dozen clinging there with the
utmost tenacity. The first object that met our eyes in the morning
was Delorier, who seemed to be apostrophizing his frying-pan, which
he held by the handle at arm's length. It appeared that he had left
it at night by the fire; and the bottom was now covered with dorbugs,
firmly imbedded. Multitudes beside, curiously parched and shriveled,
lay scattered among the ashes.

The horses and mules were turned loose to feed. We had just taken
our seats at breakfast, or rather reclined in the classic mode, when
an exclamation from Henry Chatillon, and a shout of alarm from the
captain, gave warning of some casualty, and looking up, we saw the
whole band of animals, twenty-three in number, filing off for the
settlements, the incorrigible Pontiac at their head, jumping along
with hobbled feet, at a gait much more rapid than graceful. Three or
four of us ran to cut them off, dashing as best we might through the
tall grass, which was glittering with myriads of dewdrops. After a
race of a mile or more, Shaw caught a horse. Tying the trail-rope by
way of bridle round the animal's jaw, and leaping upon his back, he
got in advance of the remaining fugitives, while we, soon bringing
them together, drove them in a crowd up to the tents, where each man
caught and saddled his own. Then we heard lamentations and curses;
for half the horses had broke their hobbles, and many were seriously
galled by attempting to run in fetters.

It was late that morning before we were on the march; and early in
the afternoon we were compelled to encamp, for a thunder-gust came up
and suddenly enveloped us in whirling sheets of rain. With much ado,
we pitched our tents amid the tempest, and all night long the thunder
bellowed and growled over our heads. In the morning, light peaceful
showers succeeded the cataracts of rain, that had been drenching us
through the canvas of our tents. About noon, when there were some
treacherous indications of fair weather, we got in motion again.

Not a breath of air stirred over the free and open prairie; the
clouds were like light piles of cotton; and where the blue sky was
visible, it wore a hazy and languid aspect. The sun beat down upon
us with a sultry penetrating heat almost insupportable, and as our
party crept slowly along over the interminable level, the horses hung
their heads as they waded fetlock deep through the mud, and the men
slouched into the easiest position upon the saddle. At last, toward
evening, the old familiar black heads of thunderclouds rose fast
above the horizon, and the same deep muttering of distant thunder
that had become the ordinary accompaniment of our afternoon's journey
began to roll hoarsely over the prairie. Only a few minutes elapsed
before the whole sky was densely shrouded, and the prairie and some
clusters of woods in front assumed a purple hue beneath the inky
shadows. Suddenly from the densest fold of the cloud the flash
leaped out, quivering again and again down to the edge of the
prairie; and at the same instant came the sharp burst and the long
rolling peal of the thunder. A cool wind, filled with the smell of
rain, just then overtook us, leveling the tall grass by the side of
the path.

"Come on; we must ride for it!" shouted Shaw, rushing past at full
speed, his led horse snorting at his side. The whole party broke
into full gallop, and made for the trees in front. Passing these, we
found beyond them a meadow which they half inclosed. We rode pell-
mell upon the ground, leaped from horseback, tore off our saddles;
and in a moment each man was kneeling at his horse's feet. The
hobbles were adjusted, and the animals turned loose; then, as the
wagons came wheeling rapidly to the spot, we seized upon the tent-
poles, and just as the storm broke, we were prepared to receive it.
It came upon us almost with the darkness of night; the trees, which
were close at hand, were completely shrouded by the roaring torrents
of rain.

We were sitting in the tent, when Delorier, with his broad felt hat
hanging about his ears, and his shoulders glistening with rain,
thrust in his head.

"Voulez-vous du souper, tout de suite? I can make a fire, sous la
charette--I b'lieve so--I try."

"Never mind supper, man; come in out of the rain."

Delorier accordingly crouched in the entrance, for modesty would not
permit him to intrude farther.

Our tent was none of the best defense against such a cataract. The
rain could not enter bodily, but it beat through the canvas in a fine
drizzle, that wetted us just as effectively. We sat upon our saddles
with faces of the utmost surliness, while the water dropped from the
vizors of our caps, and trickled down our cheeks. My india-rubber
cloak conducted twenty little rapid streamlets to the ground; and
Shaw's blanket-coat was saturated like a sponge. But what most
concerned us was the sight of several puddles of water rapidly
accumulating; one in particular, that was gathering around the tent-
pole, threatened to overspread the whole area within the tent,
holding forth but an indifferent promise of a comfortable night's
rest. Toward sunset, however, the storm ceased as suddenly as it
began. A bright streak of clear red sky appeared above the western
verge of the prairie, the horizontal rays of the sinking sun streamed
through it and glittered in a thousand prismatic colors upon the
dripping groves and the prostrate grass. The pools in the tent
dwindled and sunk into the saturated soil.

But all our hopes were delusive. Scarcely had night set in, when the
tumult broke forth anew. The thunder here is not like the tame
thunder of the Atlantic coast. Bursting with a terrific crash
directly above our heads, it roared over the boundless waste of
prairie, seeming to roll around the whole circle of the firmament
with a peculiar and awful reverberation. The lightning flashed all
night, playing with its livid glare upon the neighboring trees,
revealing the vast expanse of the plain, and then leaving us shut in
as by a palpable wall of darkness.

It did not disturb us much. Now and then a peal awakened us, and
made us conscious of the electric battle that was raging, and of the
floods that dashed upon the stanch canvas over our heads. We lay
upon india-rubber cloths, placed between our blankets and the soil.
For a while they excluded the water to admiration; but when at length
it accumulated and began to run over the edges, they served equally
well to retain it, so that toward the end of the night we were
unconsciously reposing in small pools of rain.

On finally awaking in the morning the prospect was not a cheerful
one. The rain no longer poured in torrents; but it pattered with a
quiet pertinacity upon the strained and saturated canvas. We
disengaged ourselves from our blankets, every fiber of which
glistened with little beadlike drops of water, and looked out in vain
hope of discovering some token of fair weather. The clouds, in lead-
colored volumes, rested upon the dismal verge of the prairie, or hung
sluggishly overhead, while the earth wore an aspect no more
attractive than the heavens, exhibiting nothing but pools of water,
grass beaten down, and mud well trampled by our mules and horses.
Our companions' tent, with an air of forlorn and passive misery, and
their wagons in like manner, drenched and woe-begone, stood not far
off. The captain was just returning from his morning's inspection of
the horses. He stalked through the mist and rain, with his plaid
around his shoulders; his little pipe, dingy as an antiquarian relic,
projecting from beneath his mustache, and his brother Jack at his
heels.

"Good-morning, captain."

"Good-morning to your honors," said the captain, affecting the
Hibernian accent; but at that instant, as he stooped to enter the
tent, he tripped upon the cords at the entrance, and pitched forward
against the guns which were strapped around the pole in the center.

"You are nice men, you are!" said he, after an ejaculation not
necessary to be recorded, "to set a man-trap before your door every
morning to catch your visitors."

Then he sat down upon Henry Chatillon's saddle. We tossed a piece of
buffalo robe to Jack, who was looking about in some embarrassment.
He spread it on the ground, and took his seat, with a stolid
countenance, at his brother's side.

"Exhilarating weather, captain!"

"Oh, delightful, delightful!" replied the captain. "I knew it would
be so; so much for starting yesterday at noon! I knew how it would
turn out; and I said so at the time."

"You said just the contrary to us. We were in no hurry, and only
moved because you insisted on it."

"Gentlemen," said the captain, taking his pipe from his mouth with an
air of extreme gravity, "it was no plan of mine. There is a man
among us who is determined to have everything his own way. You may
express your opinion; but don't expect him to listen. You may be as
reasonable as you like: oh, it all goes for nothing! That man is
resolved to rule the roost and he'll set his face against any plan
that he didn't think of himself."

The captain puffed for a while at his pipe, as if meditating upon his
grievances; then he began again:

"For twenty years I have been in the British army; and in all that
time I never had half so much dissension, and quarreling, and
nonsense, as since I have been on this cursed prairie. He's the most
uncomfortable man I ever met."

"Yes," said Jack; "and don't you know, Bill, how he drank up all the
coffee last night, and put the rest by for himself till the morning!"

"He pretends to know everything," resumed the captain; "nobody must
give orders but he! It's, oh! we must do this; and, oh! we must do
that; and the tent must be pitched here, and the horses must be
picketed there; for nobody knows as well as he does."

We were a little surprised at this disclosure of domestic dissensions
among our allies, for though we knew of their existence, we were not
aware of their extent. The persecuted captain seeming wholly at a
loss as to the course of conduct that he should pursue, we
recommended him to adopt prompt and energetic measures; but all his
military experience had failed to teach him the indispensable lesson
to be "hard," when the emergency requires it.

"For twenty years," he repeated, "I have been in the British army,
and in that time I have been intimately acquainted with some two
hundred officers, young and old, and I never yet quarreled with any
man. Oh, 'anything for a quiet life!' that's my maxim."

We intimated that the prairie was hardly the place to enjoy a quiet
life, but that, in the present circumstances, the best thing he could
do toward securing his wished-for tranquillity, was immediately to
put a period to the nuisance that disturbed it. But again the
captain's easy good-nature recoiled from the task. The somewhat
vigorous measures necessary to gain the desired result were utterly
repugnant to him; he preferred to pocket his grievances, still
retaining the privilege of grumbling about them. "Oh, anything for a
quiet life!" he said again, circling back to his favorite maxim.

But to glance at the previous history of our transatlantic
confederates. The captain had sold his commission, and was living in
bachelor ease and dignity in his paternal halls, near Dublin. He
hunted, fished, rode steeple-chases, ran races, and talked of his
former exploits. He was surrounded with the trophies of his rod and
gun; the walls were plentifully garnished, he told us, with moose-
horns and deer-horns, bear-skins, and fox-tails; for the captain's
double-barreled rifle had seen service in Canada and Jamaica; he had
killed salmon in Nova Scotia, and trout, by his own account, in all
the streams of the three kingdoms. But in an evil hour a seductive
stranger came from London; no less a person than R., who, among other
multitudinous wanderings, had once been upon the western prairies,
and naturally enough was anxious to visit them again. The captain's
imagination was inflamed by the pictures of a hunter's paradise that
his guest held forth; he conceived an ambition to add to his other
trophies the horns of a buffalo, and the claws of a grizzly bear; so
he and R. struck a league to travel in company. Jack followed his
brother, as a matter of course. Two weeks on board the Atlantic
steamer brought them to Boston; in two weeks more of hard traveling
they reached St. Louis, from which a ride of six days carried them to
the frontier; and here we found them, in full tide of preparation for
their journey.

We had been throughout on terms of intimacy with the captain, but R.,
the motive power of our companions' branch of the expedition, was
scarcely known to us. His voice, indeed, might be heard incessantly;
but at camp he remained chiefly within the tent, and on the road he
either rode by himself, or else remained in close conversation with
his friend Wright, the muleteer. As the captain left the tent that
morning, I observed R. standing by the fire, and having nothing else
to do, I determined to ascertain, if possible, what manner of man he
was. He had a book under his arm, but just at present he was
engrossed in actively superintending the operations of Sorel, the
hunter, who was cooking some corn-bread over the coals for breakfast.
R. was a well-formed and rather good-looking man, some thirty years
old; considerably younger than the captain. He wore a beard and
mustache of the oakum complexion, and his attire was altogether more
elegant than one ordinarily sees on the prairie. He wore his cap on
one side of his head; his checked shirt, open in front, was in very
neat order, considering the circumstances, and his blue pantaloons,
of the John Bull cut, might once have figured in Bond Street.

"Turn over that cake, man! turn it over, quick! Don't you see it
burning?"

"It ain't half done," growled Sorel, in the amiable tone of a whipped
bull-dog.

"It is. Turn it over, I tell you!"

Sorel, a strong, sullen-looking Canadian, who from having spent his
life among the wildest and most remote of the Indian tribes, had
imbibed much of their dark, vindictive spirit, looked ferociously up,
as if he longed to leap upon his bourgeois and throttle him; but he
obeyed the order, coming from so experienced an artist.

"It was a good idea of yours," said I, seating myself on the tongue
of a wagon, "to bring Indian meal with you."

"Yes, yes" said R. "It's good bread for the prairie--good bread for
the prairie. I tell you that's burning again."

Here he stooped down, and unsheathing the silver-mounted hunting-
knife in his belt, began to perform the part of cook himself; at the
same time requesting me to hold for a moment the book under his arm,
which interfered with the exercise of these important functions. I
opened it; it was "Macaulay's Lays"; and I made some remark,
expressing my admiration of the work.

"Yes, yes; a pretty good thing. Macaulay can do better than that
though. I know him very well. I have traveled with him. Where was
it we first met--at Damascus? No, no; it was in Italy."

"So," said I, "you have been over the same ground with your
countryman, the author of 'Eothen'? There has been some discussion
in America as to who he is. I have heard Milne's name mentioned."

"Milne's? Oh, no, no, no; not at all. It was Kinglake; Kinglake's
the man. I know him very well; that is, I have seen him."

Here Jack C., who stood by, interposed a remark (a thing not common
with him), observing that he thought the weather would become fair
before twelve o'clock.

"It's going to rain all day," said R., "and clear up in the middle of
the night."

Just then the clouds began to dissipate in a very unequivocal manner;
but Jack, not caring to defend his point against so authoritative a
declaration, walked away whistling, and we resumed our conversation.

"Borrow, the author of 'The Bible in Spain,' I presume you know him
too?"

"Oh, certainly; I know all those men. By the way, they told me that
one of your American writers, Judge Story, had died lately. I edited
some of his works in London; not without faults, though."

Here followed an erudite commentary on certain points of law, in
which he particularly animadverted on the errors into which he
considered that the judge had been betrayed. At length, having
touched successively on an infinite variety of topics, I found that I
had the happiness of discovering a man equally competent to enlighten
me upon them all, equally an authority on matters of science or
literature, philosphy or fashion. The part I bore in the
conversation was by no means a prominent one; it was only necessary
to set him going, and when he had run long enough upon one topic, to
divert him to another and lead him on to pour out his heaps of
treasure in succession.

"What has that fellow been saying to you?" said Shaw, as I returned
to the tent. "I have heard nothing but his talking for the last
half-hour."

R. had none of the peculiar traits of the ordinary "British snob";
his absurdities were all his own, belonging to no particular nation
or clime. He was possessed with an active devil that had driven him
over land and sea, to no great purpose, as it seemed; for although he
had the usual complement of eyes and ears, the avenues between these
organs and his brain appeared remarkably narrow and untrodden. His
energy was much more conspicuous than his wisdom; but his predominant
characteristic was a magnanimous ambition to exercise on all
occasions an awful rule and supremacy, and this propensity equally
displayed itself, as the reader will have observed, whether the
matter in question was the baking of a hoe-cake or a point of
international law. When such diverse elements as he and the easy-
tempered captain came in contact, no wonder some commotion ensued; R.
rode roughshod, from morning till night, over his military ally.

At noon the sky was clear and we set out, trailing through mud and
slime six inches deep. That night we were spared the customary
infliction of the shower bath.

On the next afternoon we were moving slowly along, not far from a
patch of woods which lay on the right. Jack C. rode a little in
advance;

     The livelong day he had not spoke;

when suddenly he faced about, pointed to the woods, and roared out to
his brother:

"O Bill! here's a cow!"

The captain instantly galloped forward, and he and Jack made a vain
attempt to capture the prize; but the cow, with a well-grounded
distrust of their intentions, took refuge among the trees. R. joined
them, and they soon drove her out. We watched their evolutions as
they galloped around here, trying in vain to noose her with their
trail-ropes, which they had converted into lariettes for the
occasion. At length they resorted to milder measures, and the cow
was driven along with the party. Soon after the usual thunderstorm
came up, the wind blowing with such fury that the streams of rain
flew almost horizontally along the prairie, roaring like a cataract.
The horses turned tail to the storm, and stood hanging their heads,
bearing the infliction with an air of meekness and resignation; while
we drew our heads between our shoulders, and crouched forward, so as
to make our backs serve as a pent-house for the rest of our persons.
Meanwhile the cow, taking advantage of the tumult, ran off, to the
great discomfiture of the captain, who seemed to consider her as his
own especial prize, since she had been discovered by Jack. In
defiance of the storm, he pulled his cap tight over his brows, jerked
a huge buffalo pistol from his holster, and set out at full speed
after her. This was the last we saw of them for some time, the mist
and rain making an impenetrable veil; but at length we heard the
captain's shout, and saw him looming through the tempest, the picture
of a Hibernian cavalier, with his cocked pistol held aloft for
safety's sake, and a countenance of anxiety and excitement. The cow
trotted before him, but exhibited evident signs of an intention to
run off again, and the captain was roaring to us to head her. But
the rain had got in behind our coat collars, and was traveling over
our necks in numerous little streamlets, and being afraid to move our
heads, for fear of admitting more, we sat stiff and immovable,
looking at the captain askance, and laughing at his frantic
movements. At last the cow made a sudden plunge and ran off; the
captain grasped his pistol firmly, spurred his horse, and galloped
after, with evident designs of mischief. In a moment we heard the
faint report, deadened by the rain, and then the conqueror and his
victim reappeared, the latter shot through the body, and quite
helpless. Not long after the storm moderated and we advanced again.
The cow walked painfully along under the charge of Jack, to whom the
captain had committed her, while he himself rode forward in his old
capacity of vedette. We were approaching a long line of trees, that
followed a stream stretching across our path, far in front, when we
beheld the vedette galloping toward us, apparently much excited, but
with a broad grin on his face.

"Let that cow drop behind!" he shouted to us; "here's her owners!"  
And in fact, as we approached the line of trees, a large white
object, like a tent, was visible behind them. On approaching,
however, we found, instead of the expected Mormon camp, nothing but
the lonely prairie, and a large white rock standing by the path. The
cow therefore resumed her place in our procession. She walked on
until we encamped, when R. firmly approaching with his enormous
English double-barreled rifle, calmly and deliberately took aim at
her heart, and discharged into it first one bullet and then the
other. She was then butchered on the most approved principles of
woodcraft, and furnished a very welcome item to our somewhat limited
bill of fare.

In a day or two more we reached the river called the "Big Blue."  By
titles equally elegant, almost all the streams of this region are
designated. We had struggled through ditches and little brooks all
that morning; but on traversing the dense woods that lined the banks
of the Blue, we found more formidable difficulties awaited us, for
the stream, swollen by the rains, was wide, deep, and rapid.

No sooner were we on the spot than R. had flung off his clothes, and
was swimming across, or splashing through the shallows, with the end
of a rope between his teeth. We all looked on in admiration,
wondering what might be the design of this energetic preparation; but
soon we heard him shouting: "Give that rope a turn round that stump!
You, Sorel: do you hear? Look sharp now, Boisverd! Come over to
this side, some of you, and help me!"  The men to whom these orders
were directed paid not the least attention to them, though they were
poured out without pause or intermission. Henry Chatillon directed
the work, and it proceeded quietly and rapidly. R.'s sharp brattling
voice might have been heard incessantly; and he was leaping about
with the utmost activity, multiplying himself, after the manner of
great commanders, as if his universal presence and supervision were
of the last necessity. His commands were rather amusingly
inconsistent; for when he saw that the men would not do as he told
them, he wisely accommodated himself to circumstances, and with the
utmost vehemence ordered them to do precisely that which they were at
the time engaged upon, no doubt recollecting the story of Mahomet and
the refractory mountain. Shaw smiled significantly; R. observed it,
and, approaching with a countenance of lofty indignation, began to
vapor a little, but was instantly reduced to silence.

The raft was at length complete. We piled our goods upon it, with
the exception of our guns, which each man chose to retain in his own
keeping. Sorel, Boisverd, Wright and Delorier took their stations at
the four corners, to hold it together, and swim across with it; and
in a moment more, all our earthly possessions were floating on the
turbid waters of the Big Blue. We sat on the bank, anxiously
watching the result, until we saw the raft safe landed in a little
cove far down on the opposite bank. The empty wagons were easily
passed across; and then each man mounting a horse, we rode through
the stream, the stray animals following of their own accord.

CHAPTER VI

THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT

We were now arrived at the close of our solitary journeyings along
the St. Joseph's trail. On the evening of the 23d of May we encamped
near its junction with the old legitimate trail of the Oregon
emigrants. We had ridden long that afternoon, trying in vain to find
wood and water, until at length we saw the sunset sky reflected from
a pool encircled by bushes and a rock or two. The water lay in the
bottom of a hollow, the smooth prairie gracefully rising in oceanlike
swells on every side. We pitched our tents by it; not however before
the keen eye of Henry Chatillon had discerned some unusual object
upon the faintly-defined outline of the distant swell. But in the
moist, hazy atmosphere of the evening, nothing could be clearly
distinguished. As we lay around the fire after supper, a low and
distant sound, strange enough amid the loneliness of the prairie,
reached our ears--peals of laughter, and the faint voices of men and
women. For eight days we had not encountered a human being, and this
singular warning of their vicinity had an effect extremely wild and
impressive.

About dark a sallow-faced fellow descended the hill on horseback, and
splashing through the pool rode up to the tents. He was enveloped in
a huge cloak, and his broad felt hat was weeping about his ears with
the drizzling moisture of the evening. Another followed, a stout,
square-built, intelligent-looking man, who announced himself as
leader of an emigrant party encamped a mile in advance of us. About
twenty wagons, he said, were with him; the rest of his party were on
the other side of the Big Blue, waiting for a woman who was in the
pains of child-birth, and quarreling meanwhile among themselves.

These were the first emigrants that we had overtaken, although we had
found abundant and melancholy traces of their progress throughout the
whole course of the journey. Sometimes we passed the grave of one
who had sickened and died on the way. The earth was usually torn up,
and covered thickly with wolf-tracks. Some had escaped this
violation. One morning a piece of plank, standing upright on the
summit of a grassy hill, attracted our notice, and riding up to it we
found the following words very roughly traced upon it, apparently by
a red-hot piece of iron:

         MARY ELLIS

     DIED MAY 7TH, 1845.

       Aged two months.

Such tokens were of common occurrence, nothing could speak more for
the hardihood, or rather infatuation, of the adventurers, or the
sufferings that await them upon the journey.

We were late in breaking up our camp on the following morning, and
scarcely had we ridden a mile when we saw, far in advance of us,
drawn against the horizon, a line of objects stretching at regular
intervals along the level edge of the prairie. An intervening swell
soon hid them from sight, until, ascending it a quarter of an hour
after, we saw close before us the emigrant caravan, with its heavy
white wagons creeping on in their slow procession, and a large drove
of cattle following behind. Half a dozen yellow-visaged Missourians,
mounted on horseback, were cursing and shouting among them; their
lank angular proportions enveloped in brown homespun, evidently cut
and adjusted by the hands of a domestic female tailor. As we
approached, they greeted us with the polished salutation: "How are
ye, boys? Are ye for Oregon or California?"

As we pushed rapidly past the wagons, children's faces were thrust
out from the white coverings to look at us; while the care-worn,
thin-featured matron, or the buxom girl, seated in front, suspended
the knitting on which most of them were engaged to stare at us with
wondering curiosity. By the side of each wagon stalked the
proprietor, urging on his patient oxen, who shouldered heavily along,
inch by inch, on their interminable journey. It was easy to see that
fear and dissension prevailed among them; some of the men--but these,
with one exception, were bachelors--looked wistfully upon us as we
rode lightly and swiftly past, and then impatiently at their own
lumbering wagons and heavy-gaited oxen. Others were unwilling to
advance at all until the party they had left behind should have
rejoined them. Many were murmuring against the leader they had
chosen, and wished to depose him; and this discontent was fermented
by some ambitious spirits, who had hopes of succeeding in his place.
The women were divided between regrets for the homes they had left
and apprehension of the deserts and the savages before them.

We soon left them far behind, and fondly hoped that we had taken a
final leave; but unluckily our companions' wagon stuck so long in a
deep muddy ditch that, before it was extricated, the van of the
emigrant caravan appeared again, descending a ridge close at hand.
Wagon after wagon plunged through the mud; and as it was nearly noon,
and the place promised shade and water, we saw with much
gratification that they were resolved to encamp. Soon the wagons
were wheeled into a circle; the cattle were grazing over the meadow,
and the men with sour, sullen faces, were looking about for wood and
water. They seemed to meet with but indifferent success. As we left
the ground, I saw a tall slouching fellow with the nasal accent of
"down east," contemplating the contents of his tin cup, which he had
just filled with water.

"Look here, you," he said; "it's chock full of animals!"

The cup, as he held it out, exhibited in fact an extraordinary
variety and profusion of animal and vegetable life.

Riding up the little hill and looking back on the meadow, we could
easily see that all was not right in the camp of the emigrants. The
men were crowded together, and an angry discussion seemed to be going
forward. R. was missing from his wonted place in the line, and the
captain told us that he had remained behind to get his horse shod by
a blacksmith who was attached to the emigrant party. Something
whispered in our ears that mischief was on foot; we kept on, however,
and coming soon to a stream of tolerable water, we stopped to rest
and dine. Still the absentee lingered behind. At last, at the
distance of a mile, he and his horse suddenly appeared, sharply
defined against the sky on the summit of a hill; and close behind, a
huge white object rose slowly into view.

"What is that blockhead bringing with him now?"

A moment dispelled the mystery. Slowly and solemnly one behind the
other, four long trains of oxen and four emigrant wagons rolled over
the crest of the declivity and gravely descended, while R. rode in
state in the van. It seems that, during the process of shoeing the
horse, the smothered dissensions among the emigrants suddenly broke
into open rupture. Some insisted on pushing forward, some on
remaining where they were, and some on going back. Kearsley, their
captain, threw up his command in disgust. "And now, boys," said he,
"if any of you are for going ahead, just you come along with me."

Four wagons, with ten men, one woman, and one small child, made up
the force of the "go-ahead" faction, and R., with his usual
proclivity toward mischief, invited them to join our party. Fear of
the Indians--for I can conceive of no other motive--must have induced
him to court so burdensome an alliance. As may well be conceived,
these repeated instances of high-handed dealing sufficiently
exasperated us. In this case, indeed, the men who joined us were all
that could be desired; rude indeed in manner, but frank, manly, and
intelligent. To tell them we could not travel with them was of
course out of the question. I merely reminded Kearsley that if his
oxen could not keep up with our mules he must expect to be left
behind, as we could not consent to be further delayed on the journey;
but he immediately replied, that his oxen "SHOULD keep up; and if
they couldn't, why he allowed that he'd find out how to make 'em!"  
Having availed myself of what satisfaction could be derived from
giving R. to understand my opinion of his conduct, I returned to our
side of the camp.

On the next day, as it chanced, our English companions broke the
axle-tree of their wagon, and down came the whole cumbrous machine
lumbering into the bed of a brook! Here was a day's work cut out for
us. Meanwhile, our emigrant associates kept on their way, and so
vigorously did they urge forward their powerful oxen that, with the
broken axle-tree and other calamities, it was full a week before we
overtook them; when at length we discovered them, one afternoon,
crawling quietly along the sandy brink of the Platte. But meanwhile
various incidents occurred to ourselves.

It was probable that at this stage of our journey the Pawnees would
attempt to rob us. We began therefore to stand guard in turn,
dividing the night into three watches, and appointing two men for
each. Delorier and I held guard together. We did not march with
military precision to and fro before the tents; our discipline was by
no means so stringent and rigid. We wrapped ourselves in our
blankets, and sat down by the fire; and Delorier, combining his
culinary functions with his duties as sentinel, employed himself in
boiling the head of an antelope for our morning's repast. Yet we
were models of vigilance in comparison with some of the party; for
the ordinary practice of the guard was to establish himself in the
most comfortable posture he could; lay his rifle on the ground, and
enveloping his nose in the blanket, meditate on his mistress, or
whatever subject best pleased him. This is all well enough when
among Indians who do not habitually proceed further in their
hostility than robbing travelers of their horses and mules, though,
indeed, a Pawnee's forebearance is not always to be trusted; but in
certain regions farther to the west, the guard must beware how he
exposes his person to the light of the fire, lest perchance some
keen-eyed skulking marksman should let fly a bullet or an arrow from
amid the darkness.

Among various tales that circulated around our camp fire was a rather
curious one, told by Boisverd, and not inappropriate here. Boisverd
was trapping with several companions on the skirts of the Blackfoot
country. The man on guard, well knowing that it behooved him to put
forth his utmost precaution, kept aloof from the firelight, and sat
watching intently on all sides. At length he was aware of a dark,
crouching figure, stealing noiselessly into the circle of the light.
He hastily cocked his rifle, but the sharp click of the lock caught
the ear of Blackfoot, whose senses were all on the alert. Raising
his arrow, already fitted to the string, he shot in the direction of
the sound. So sure was his aim that he drove it through the throat
of the unfortunate guard, and then, with a loud yell, bounded from
the camp.

As I looked at the partner of my watch, puffing and blowing over his
fire, it occurred to me that he might not prove the most efficient
auxiliary in time of trouble.

"Delorier," said I, "would you run away if the Pawnees should fire at
us?"

"Ah! oui, oui, monsieur!" he replied very decisively.

I did not doubt the fact, but was a little surprised at the frankness
of the confession.

At this instant a most whimsical variety of voices--barks, howls,
yelps, and whines--all mingled as it were together, sounded from the
prairie, not far off, as if a whole conclave of wolves of every age
and sex were assembled there. Delorier looked up from his work with
a laugh, and began to imitate this curious medley of sounds with a
most ludicrous accuracy. At this they were repeated with redoubled
emphasis, the musician being apparently indignant at the successful
efforts of a rival. They all proceeded from the throat of one little
wolf, not larger than a spaniel, seated by himself at some distance.
He was of the species called the prairie wolf; a grim-visaged, but
harmless little brute, whose worst propensity is creeping among
horses and gnawing the ropes of raw hide by which they are picketed
around the camp. But other beasts roam the prairies, far more
formidable in aspect and in character. These are the large white and
gray wolves, whose deep howl we heard at intervals from far and near.

At last I fell into a doze, and, awakening from it, found Delorier
fast asleep. Scandalized by this breach of discipline, I was about
to stimulate his vigilance by stirring him with the stock of my
rifle; but compassion prevailing, I determined to let him sleep
awhile, and then to arouse him, and administer a suitable reproof for
such a forgetfulness of duty. Now and then I walked the rounds among
the silent horses, to see that all was right. The night was chill,
damp, and dark, the dank grass bending under the icy dewdrops. At
the distance of a rod or two the tents were invisible, and nothing
could be seen but the obscure figures of the horses, deeply
breathing, and restlessly starting as they slept, or still slowly
champing the grass. Far off, beyond the black outline of the
prairie, there was a ruddy light, gradually increasing, like the glow
of a conflagration; until at length the broad disk of the moon,
blood-red, and vastly magnified by the vapors, rose slowly upon the
darkness, flecked by one or two little clouds, and as the light
poured over the gloomy plain, a fierce and stern howl, close at hand,
seemed to greet it as an unwelcome intruder. There was something
impressive and awful in the place and the hour; for I and the beasts
were all that had consciousness for many a league around.

Some days elapsed, and brought us near the Platte. Two men on
horseback approached us one morning, and we watched them with the
curiosity and interest that, upon the solitude of the plains, such an
encounter always excites. They were evidently whites, from their
mode of riding, though, contrary to the usage of that region, neither
of them carried a rifle.

"Fools!" remarked Henry Chatillon, "to ride that way on the prairie;
Pawnee find them--then they catch it!"

Pawnee HAD found them, and they had come very near "catching it";
indeed, nothing saved them from trouble but the approach of our
party. Shaw and I knew one of them; a man named Turner, whom we had
seen at Westport. He and his companion belonged to an emigrant party
encamped a few miles in advance, and had returned to look for some
stray oxen, leaving their rifles, with characteristic rashness or
ignorance behind them. Their neglect had nearly cost them dear; for
just before we came up, half a dozen Indians approached, and seeing
them apparently defenseless, one of the rascals seized the bridle of
Turner's fine horse, and ordered him to dismount. Turner was wholly
unarmed; but the other jerked a little revolving pistol out of his
pocket, at which the Pawnee recoiled; and just then some of our men
appearing in the distance, the whole party whipped their rugged
little horses, and made off. In no way daunted, Turner foolishly
persisted in going forward.

Long after leaving him, and late this afternoon, in the midst of a
gloomy and barren prairie, we came suddenly upon the great Pawnee
trail, leading from their villages on the Platte to their war and
hunting grounds to the southward. Here every summer pass the motley
concourse; thousands of savages, men, women, and children, horses and
mules, laden with their weapons and implements, and an innumerable
multitude of unruly wolfish dogs, who have not acquired the civilized
accomplishment of barking, but howl like their wild cousins of the
prairie.

The permanent winter villages of the Pawnees stand on the lower
Platte, but throughout the summer the greater part of the inhabitants
are wandering over the plains, a treacherous cowardly banditti, who
by a thousand acts of pillage and murder have deserved summary
chastisement at the hands of government. Last year a Dakota warrior
performed a signal exploit at one of these villages. He approached
it alone in the middle of a dark night, and clambering up the outside
of one of the lodges which are in the form of a half-sphere, he
looked in at the round hole made at the top for the escape of smoke.
The dusky light from the smoldering embers showed him the forms of
the sleeping inmates; and dropping lightly through the opening, he
unsheathed his knife, and stirring the fire coolly selected his
victims. One by one he stabbed and scalped them, when a child
suddenly awoke and screamed. He rushed from the lodge, yelled a
Sioux war-cry, shouted his name in triumph and defiance, and in a
moment had darted out upon the dark prairie, leaving the whole
village behind him in a tumult, with the howling and baying of dogs,
the screams of women and the yells of the enraged warriors.

Our friend Kearsley, as we learned on rejoining him, signalized
himself by a less bloody achievement. He and his men were good
woodsmen, and well skilled in the use of the rifle, but found
themselves wholly out of their element on the prairie. None of them
had ever seen a buffalo and they had very vague conceptions of his
nature and appearance. On the day after they reached the Platte,
looking toward a distant swell, they beheld a multitude of little
black specks in motion upon its surface.

"Take your rifles, boys," said Kearslcy, "and we'll have fresh meat
for supper."  This inducement was quite sufficient. The ten men left
their wagons and set out in hot haste, some on horseback and some on
foot, in pursuit of the supposed buffalo. Meanwhile a high grassy
ridge shut the game from view; but mounting it after half an hour's
running and riding, they found themselves suddenly confronted by
about thirty mounted Pawnees! The amazement and consternation were
mutual. Having nothing but their bows and arrows, the Indians
thought their hour was come, and the fate that they were no doubt
conscious of richly deserving about to overtake them. So they began,
one and all, to shout forth the most cordial salutations of
friendship, running up with extreme earnestness to shake hands with
the Missourians, who were as much rejoiced as they were to escape the
expected conflict.

A low undulating line of sand-hills bounded the horizon before us.
That day we rode ten consecutive hours, and it was dusk before we
entered the hollows and gorges of these gloomy little hills. At
length we gained the summit, and the long expected valley of the
Platte lay before us. We all drew rein, and, gathering in a knot on
the crest of the hill, sat joyfully looking down upon the prospect.
It was right welcome; strange too, and striking to the imagination,
and yet it had not one picturesque or beautiful feature; nor had it
any of the features of grandeur, other than its vast extent, its
solitude, and its wilderness. For league after league a plain as
level as a frozen lake was outspread beneath us; here and there the
Platte, divided into a dozen threadlike sluices, was traversing it,
and an occasional clump of wood, rising in the midst like a shadowy
island, relieved the monotony of the waste. No living thing was
moving throughout the vast landscape, except the lizards that darted
over the sand and through the rank grass and prickly-pear just at our
feet. And yet stern and wild associations gave a singular interest
to the view; for here each man lives by the strength of his arm and
the valor of his heart. Here society is reduced to its original
elements, the whole fabric of art and conventionality is struck
rudely to pieces, and men find themselves suddenly brought back to
the wants and resources of their original natures.

We had passed the more toilsome and monotonous part of the journey;
but four hundred miles still intervened between us and Fort Laramie;
and to reach that point cost us the travel of three additional weeks.
During the whole of this time we were passing up the center of a long
narrow sandy plain, reaching like an outstretched belt nearly to the
Rocky Mountains. Two lines of sand-hills, broken often into the
wildest and most fantastic forms, flanked the valley at the distance
of a mile or two on the right and left; while beyond them lay a
barren, trackless waste--The Great American Desert--extending for
hundreds of miles to the Arkansas on the one side, and the Missouri
on the other. Before us and behind us, the level monotony of the
plain was unbroken as far as the eye could reach. Sometimes it
glared in the sun, an expanse of hot, bare sand; sometimes it was
veiled by long coarse grass. Huge skulls and whitening bones of
buffalo were scattered everywhere; the ground was tracked by myriads
of them, and often covered with the circular indentations where the
bulls had wallowed in the hot weather. From every gorge and ravine,
opening from the hills, descended deep, well-worn paths, where the
buffalo issue twice a day in regular procession down to drink in the
Platte. The river itself runs through the midst, a thin sheet of
rapid, turbid water, half a mile wide, and scarce two feet deep. Its
low banks for the most part without a bush or a tree, are of loose
sand, with which the stream is so charged that it grates on the teeth
in drinking. The naked landscape is, of itself, dreary and
monotonous enough, and yet the wild beasts and wild men that frequent
the valley of the Platte make it a scene of interest and excitement
to the traveler. Of those who have journeyed there, scarce one,
perhaps, fails to look back with fond regret to his horse and his
rifle.

Early in the morning after we reached the Platte, a long procession
of squalid savages approached our camp. Each was on foot, leading
his horse by a rope of bull-hide. His attire consisted merely of a
scanty cincture and an old buffalo robe, tattered and begrimed by
use, which hung over his shoulders. His head was close shaven,
except a ridge of hair reaching over the crown from the center of the
forehead, very much like the long bristles on the back of a hyena,
and he carried his bow and arrows in his hand, while his meager
little horse was laden with dried buffalo meat, the produce of his
hunting. Such were the first specimens that we met--and very
indifferent ones they were--of the genuine savages of the prairie.

They were the Pawnees whom Kearsley had encountered the day before,
and belonged to a large hunting party known to be ranging the prairie
in the vicinity. They strode rapidly past, within a furlong of our
tents, not pausing or looking toward us, after the manner of Indians
when meditating mischief or conscious of ill-desert. I went out and
met them; and had an amicable conference with the chief, presenting
him with half a pound of tobacco, at which unmerited bounty he
expressed much gratification. These fellows, or some of their
companions had committed a dastardly outrage upon an emigrant party
in advance of us. Two men, out on horseback at a distance, were
seized by them, but lashing their horses, they broke loose and fled.
At this the Pawnees raised the yell and shot at them, transfixing the
hindermost through the back with several arrows, while his companion
galloped away and brought in the news to his party. The panic-
stricken emigrants remained for several days in camp, not daring even
to send out in quest of the dead body.

The reader will recollect Turner, the man whose narrow escape was
mentioned not long since. We heard that the men, whom the entreaties
of his wife induced to go in search of him, found him leisurely
driving along his recovered oxen, and whistling in utter contempt of
the Pawnee nation. His party was encamped within two miles of us;
but we passed them that morning, while the men were driving in the
oxen, and the women packing their domestic utensils and their
numerous offspring in the spacious patriarchal wagons. As we looked
back we saw their caravan dragging its slow length along the plain;
wearily toiling on its way, to found new empires in the West.

Our New England climate is mild and equable compared with that of the
Platte. This very morning, for instance, was close and sultry, the
sun rising with a faint oppressive heat; when suddenly darkness
gathered in the west, and a furious blast of sleet and hail drove
full in our faces, icy cold, and urged with such demoniac vehemence
that it felt like a storm of needles. It was curious to see the
horses; they faced about in extreme displeasure, holding their tails
like whipped dogs, and shivering as the angry gusts, howling louder
than a concert of wolves, swept over us. Wright's long train of
mules came sweeping round before the storm like a flight of brown
snowbirds driven by a winter tempest. Thus we all remained
stationary for some minutes, crouching close to our horses' necks,
much too surly to speak, though once the captain looked up from
between the collars of his coat, his face blood-red, and the muscles
of his mouth contracted by the cold into a most ludicrous grin of
agony. He grumbled something that sounded like a curse, directed as
we believed, against the unhappy hour when he had first thought of
leaving home. The thing was too good to last long; and the instant
the puffs of wind subsided we erected our tents, and remained in camp
for the rest of a gloomy and lowering day. The emigrants also
encamped near at hand. We, being first on the ground, had
appropriated all the wood within reach; so that our fire alone blazed
cheerfully. Around it soon gathered a group of uncouth figures,
shivering in the drizzling rain. Conspicuous among them were two or
three of the half-savage men who spend their reckless lives in
trapping among the Rocky Mountains, or in trading for the Fur Company
in the Indian villages. They were all of Canadian extraction; their
hard, weather-beaten faces and bushy mustaches looked out from
beneath the hoods of their white capotes with a bad and brutish
expression, as if their owner might be the willing agent of any
villainy. And such in fact is the character of many of these men.

On the day following we overtook Kearsley's wagons, and
thenceforward, for a week or two, we were fellow-travelers. One good
effect, at least, resulted from the alliance; it materially
diminished the serious fatigue of standing guard; for the party being
now more numerous, there were longer intervals between each man's
turns of duty.

CHAPTER VII

THE BUFFALO

Four days on the Platte, and yet no buffalo! Last year's signs of
them were provokingly abundant; and wood being extremely scarce, we
found an admirable substitute in bois de vache, which burns exactly
like peat, producing no unpleasant effects. The wagons one morning
had left the camp; Shaw and I were already on horseback, but Henry
Chatillon still sat cross-legged by the dead embers of the fire,
playing pensively with the lock of his rifle, while his sturdy
Wyandotte pony stood quietly behind him, looking over his head. At
last he got up, patted the neck of the pony (whom, from an
exaggerated appreciation of his merits, he had christened "Five
Hundred Dollar"), and then mounted with a melancholy air.

"What is it, Henry?"

"Ah, I feel lonesome; I never been here before; but I see away yonder
over the buttes, and down there on the prairie, black--all black with
buffalo!"

In the afternoon he and I left the party in search of an antelope;
until at the distance of a mile or two on the right, the tall white
wagons and the little black specks of horsemen were just visible, so
slowly advancing that they seemed motionless; and far on the left
rose the broken line of scorched, desolate sand-hills. The vast
plain waved with tall rank grass that swept our horses' bellies; it
swayed to and fro in billows with the light breeze, and far and near
antelope and wolves were moving through it, the hairy backs of the
latter alternately appearing and disappearing as they bounded
awkwardly along; while the antelope, with the simple curiosity
peculiar to them, would often approach as closely, their little horns
and white throats just visible above the grass tops, as they gazed
eagerly at us with their round black eyes.

I dismounted, and amused myself with firing at the wolves. Henry
attentively scrutinized the surrounding landscape; at length he gave
a shout, and called on me to mount again, pointing in the direction
of the sand-hills. A mile and a half from us, two minute black
specks slowly traversed the face of one of the bare glaring
declivities, and disappeared behind the summit. "Let us go!" cried
Henry, belaboring the sides of Five Hundred Dollar; and I following
in his wake, we galloped rapidly through the rank grass toward the
base of the hills.

From one of their openings descended a deep ravine, widening as it
issued on the prairie. We entered it, and galloping up, in a moment
were surrounded by the bleak sand-hills. Half of their steep sides
were bare; the rest were scantily clothed with clumps of grass, and
various uncouth plants, conspicuous among which appeared the reptile-
like prickly-pear. They were gashed with numberless ravines; and as
the sky had suddenly darkened, and a cold gusty wind arisen, the
strange shrubs and the dreary hills looked doubly wild and desolate.
But Henry's face was all eagerness. He tore off a little hair from
the piece of buffalo robe under his saddle, and threw it up, to show
the course of the wind. It blew directly before us. The game were
therefore to windward, and it was necessary to make our best speed to
get around them.

We scrambled from this ravine, and galloping away through the
hollows, soon found another, winding like a snake among the hills,
and so deep that it completely concealed us. We rode up the bottom
of it, glancing through the shrubbery at its edge, till Henry
abruptly jerked his rein, and slid out of his saddle. Full a quarter
of a mile distant, on the outline of the farthest hill, a long
procession of buffalo were walking, in Indian file, with the utmost
gravity and deliberation; then more appeared, clambering from a
hollow not far off, and ascending, one behind the other, the grassy
slope of another hill; then a shaggy head and a pair of short broken
horns appeared issuing out of a ravine close at hand, and with a
slow, stately step, one by one, the enormous brutes came into view,
taking their way across the valley, wholly unconscious of an enemy.
In a moment Henry was worming his way, lying flat on the ground,
through grass and prickly-pears, toward his unsuspecting victims. He
had with him both my rifle and his own. He was soon out of sight,
and still the buffalo kept issuing into the valley. For a long time
all was silent. I sat holding his horse, and wondering what he was
about, when suddenly, in rapid succession, came the sharp reports of
the two rifles, and the whole line of buffalo, quickening their pace
into a clumsy trot, gradually disappeared over the ridge of the hill.
Henry rose to his feet, and stood looking after them.

"You have missed them," said I.

"Yes," said Henry; "let us go."  He descended into the ravine, loaded
the rifles, and mounted his horse.

We rode up the hill after the buffalo. The herd was out of sight
when we reached the top, but lying on the grass not far off, was one
quite lifeless, and another violently struggling in the death agony.

"You see I miss him!" remarked Henry. He had fired from a distance
of more than a hundred and fifty yards, and both balls had passed
through the lungs--the true mark in shooting buffalo.

The darkness increased, and a driving storm came on. Tying our
horses to the horns of the victims, Henry began the bloody work of
dissection, slashing away with the science of a connoisseur, while I
vainly endeavored to imitate him. Old Hendrick recoiled with horror
and indignation when I endeavored to tie the meat to the strings of
raw hide, always carried for this purpose, dangling at the back of
the saddle. After some difficulty we overcame his scruples; and
heavily burdened with the more eligible portions of the buffalo, we
set out on our return. Scarcely had we emerged from the labyrinth of
gorges and ravines, and issued upon the open prairie, when the
pricking sleet came driving, gust upon gust, directly in our faces.
It was strangely dark, though wanting still an hour of sunset. The
freezing storm soon penetrated to the skin, but the uneasy trot of
our heavy-gaited horses kept us warm enough, as we forced them
unwillingly in the teeth of the sleet and rain, by the powerful
suasion of our Indian whips. The prairie in this place was hard and
level. A flourishing colony of prairie dogs had burrowed into it in
every direction, and the little mounds of fresh earth around their
holes were about as numerous as the hills in a cornfield; but not a
yelp was to be heard; not the nose of a single citizen was visible;
all had retired to the depths of their burrows, and we envied them
their dry and comfortable habitations. An hour's hard riding showed
us our tent dimly looming through the storm, one side puffed out by
the force of the wind, and the other collapsed in proportion, while
the disconsolate horses stood shivering close around, and the wind
kept up a dismal whistling in the boughs of three old half-dead trees
above. Shaw, like a patriarch, sat on his saddle in the entrance,
with a pipe in his mouth, and his arms folded, contemplating, with
cool satisfaction, the piles of meat that we flung on the ground
before him. A dark and dreary night succeeded; but the sun rose with
heat so sultry and languid that the captain excused himself on that
account from waylaying an old buffalo bull, who with stupid gravity
was walking over the prairie to drink at the river. So much for the
climate of the Platte!

But it was not the weather alone that had produced this sudden
abatement of the sportsmanlike zeal which the captain had always
professed. He had been out on the afternoon before, together with
several members of his party; but their hunting was attended with no
other result than the loss of one of their best horses, severely
injured by Sorel, in vainly chasing a wounded bull. The captain,
whose ideas of hard riding were all derived from transatlantic
sources, expressed the utmost amazement at the feats of Sorel, who
went leaping ravines, and dashing at full speed up and down the sides
of precipitous hills, lashing his horse with the recklessness of a
Rocky Mountain rider. Unfortunately for the poor animal he was the
property of R., against whom Sorel entertained an unbounded aversion.
The captain himself, it seemed, had also attempted to "run" a
buffalo, but though a good and practiced horseman, he had soon given
over the attempt, being astonished and utterly disgusted at the
nature of the ground he was required to ride over.

Nothing unusual occurred on that day; but on the following morning
Henry Chatillon, looking over the oceanlike expanse, saw near the
foot of the distant hills something that looked like a band of
buffalo. He was not sure, he said, but at all events, if they were
buffalo, there was a fine chance for a race. Shaw and I at once
determined to try the speed of our horses.

"Come, captain; we'll see which can ride hardest, a Yankee or an
Irishman."

But the captain maintained a grave and austere countenance. He
mounted his led horse, however, though very slowly; and we set out at
a trot. The game appeared about three miles distant. As we
proceeded the captain made various remarks of doubt and indecision;
and at length declared he would have nothing to do with such a
breakneck business; protesting that he had ridden plenty of steeple-
chases in his day, but he never knew what riding was till he found
himself behind a band of buffalo day before yesterday. "I am
convinced," said the captain, "that, 'running' is out of the
question.*  Take my advice now and don't attempt it. It's dangerous,
and of no use at all."

*The method of hunting called "running" consists in attacking the
buffalo on horseback and shooting him with bullets or arrows when at
full-speed. In "approaching," the hunter conceals himself and crawls
on the ground toward the game, or lies in wait to kill them.

"Then why did you come out with us? What do you mean to do?"

"I shall 'approach,'" replied the captain.

"You don't mean to 'approach' with your pistols, do you? We have all
of us left our rifles in the wagons."

The captain seemed staggered at the suggestion. In his
characteristic indecision, at setting out, pistols, rifles, "running"
and "approaching" were mingled in an inextricable medley in his
brain. He trotted on in silence between us for a while; but at
length he dropped behind and slowly walked his horse back to rejoin
the party. Shaw and I kept on; when lo! as we advanced, the band of
buffalo were transformed into certain clumps of tall bushes, dotting
the prairie for a considerable distance. At this ludicrous
termination of our chase, we followed the example of our late ally,
and turned back toward the party. We were skirting the brink of a
deep ravine, when we saw Henry and the broad-chested pony coming
toward us at a gallop.

"Here's old Papin and Frederic, down from Fort Laramie!" shouted
Henry, long before he came up. We had for some days expected this
encounter. Papin was the bourgeois of Fort Laramie. He had come
down the river with the buffalo robes and the beaver, the produce of
the last winter's trading. I had among our baggage a letter which I
wished to commit to their hands; so requesting Henry to detain the
boats if he could until my return, I set out after the wagons. They
were about four miles in advance. In half an hour I overtook them,
got the letter, trotted back upon the trail, and looking carefully,
as I rode, saw a patch of broken, storm-blasted trees, and moving
near them some little black specks like men and horses. Arriving at
the place, I found a strange assembly. The boats, eleven in number,
deep-laden with the skins, hugged close to the shore, to escape being
borne down by the swift current. The rowers, swarthy ignoble
Mexicans, turned their brutish faces upward to look, as I reached the
bank. Papin sat in the middle of one of the boats upon the canvas
covering that protected the robes. He was a stout, robust fellow,
with a little gray eye, that had a peculiarly sly twinkle.
"Frederic" also stretched his tall rawboned proportions close by the
bourgeois, and "mountain-men" completed the group; some lounging in
the boats, some strolling on shore; some attired in gayly painted
buffalo robes, like Indian dandies; some with hair saturated with red
paint, and beplastered with glue to their temples; and one bedaubed
with vermilion upon his forehead and each cheek. They were a mongrel
race; yet the French blood seemed to predominate; in a few, indeed,
might be seen the black snaky eye of the Indian half-breed, and one
and all, they seemed to aim at assimilating themselves to their
savage associates.

I shook hands with the bourgeois, and delivered the letter; then the
boats swung round into the stream and floated away. They had reason
for haste, for already the voyage from Fort Laramie had occupied a
full month, and the river was growing daily more shallow. Fifty
times a day the boats had been aground, indeed; those who navigate
the Platte invariably spend half their time upon sand-bars. Two of
these boats, the property of private traders, afterward separating
from the rest, got hopelessly involved in the shallows, not very far
from the Pawnee villages, and were soon surrounded by a swarm of the
inhabitants. They carried off everything that they considered
valuable, including most of the robes; and amused themselves by tying
up the men left on guard and soundly whipping them with sticks.

We encamped that night upon the bank of the river. Among the
emigrants there was an overgrown boy, some eighteen years old, with a
head as round and about as large as a pumpkin, and fever-and-ague
fits had dyed his face of a corresponding color. He wore an old
white hat, tied under his chin with a handkerchief; his body was
short and stout, but his legs of disproportioned and appalling
length. I observed him at sunset, breasting the hill with gigantic
strides, and standing against the sky on the summit, like a colossal
pair of tongs. In a moment after we heard him screaming frantically
behind the ridge, and nothing doubting that he was in the clutches of
Indians or grizzly bears, some of the party caught up their rifles
and ran to the rescue. His outcries, however, proved but an
ebullition of joyous excitement; he had chased two little wolf pups
to their burrow, and he was on his knees, grubbing away like a dog at
the mouth of the hole, to get at them.

Before morning he caused more serious disquiet in the camp. It was
his turn to hold the middle guard; but no sooner was he called up,
than he coolly arranged a pair of saddle-bags under a wagon, laid his
head upon them, closed his eyes, opened his mouth and fell asleep.
The guard on our side of the camp, thinking it no part of his duty to
look after the cattle of the emigrants, contented himself with
watching our own horses and mules; the wolves, he said, were
unusually noisy; but still no mischief was anticipated until the sun
rose, and not a hoof or horn was in sight! The cattle were gone!
While Tom was quietly slumbering, the wolves had driven them away.

Then we reaped the fruits of R.'s precious plan of traveling in
company with emigrants. To leave them in their distress was not to
be thought of, and we felt bound to wait until the cattle could be
searched for, and, if possible, recovered. But the reader may be
curious to know what punishment awaited the faithless Tom. By the
wholesome law of the prairie, he who falls asleep on guard is
condemned to walk all day leading his horse by the bridle, and we
found much fault with our companions for not enforcing such a
sentence on the offender. Nevertheless had he been of our party, I
have no doubt he would in like manner have escaped scot-free. But
the emigrants went farther than mere forebearance; they decreed that
since Tom couldn't stand guard without falling asleep, he shouldn't
stand guard at all, and henceforward his slumbers were unbroken.
Establishing such a premium on drowsiness could have no very
beneficial effect upon the vigilance of our sentinels; for it is far
from agreeable, after riding from sunrise to sunset, to feel your
slumbers interrupted by the butt of a rifle nudging your side, and a
sleepy voice growling in your ear that you must get up, to shiver and
freeze for three weary hours at midnight.

"Buffalo! buffalo!"  It was but a grim old bull, roaming the prairie
by himself in misanthropic seclusion; but there might be more behind
the hills. Dreading the monotony and languor of the camp, Shaw and I
saddled our horses, buckled our holsters in their places, and set out
with Henry Chatillon in search of the game. Henry, not intending to
take part in the chase, but merely conducting us, carried his rifle
with him, while we left ours behind as incumbrances. We rode for
some five or six miles, and saw no living thing but wolves, snakes,
and prairie dogs.

"This won't do at all," said Shaw.

"What won't do?"

"There's no wood about here to make a litter for the wounded man; I
have an idea that one of us will need something of the sort before
the day is over."

There was some foundation for such an apprehension, for the ground
was none of the best for a race, and grew worse continually as we
proceeded; indeed it soon became desperately bad, consisting of
abrupt hills and deep hollows, cut by frequent ravines not easy to
pass. At length, a mile in advance, we saw a band of bulls. Some
were scattered grazing over a green declivity, while the rest were
crowded more densely together in the wide hollow below. Making a
circuit to keep out of sight, we rode toward them until we ascended a
hill within a furlong of them, beyond which nothing intervened that
could possibly screen us from their view. We dismounted behind the
ridge just out of sight, drew our saddle-girths, examined our
pistols, and mounting again rode over the hill, and descended at a
canter toward them, bending close to our horses' necks. Instantly
they took the alarm; those on the hill descended; those below
gathered into a mass, and the whole got in motion, shouldering each
other along at a clumsy gallop. We followed, spurring our horses to
full speed; and as the herd rushed, crowding and trampling in terror
through an opening in the hills, we were close at their heels, half
suffocated by the clouds of dust. But as we drew near, their alarm
and speed increased; our horses showed signs of the utmost fear,
bounding violently aside as we approached, and refusing to enter
among the herd. The buffalo now broke into several small bodies,
scampering over the hills in different directions, and I lost sight
of Shaw; neither of us knew where the other had gone. Old Pontiac
ran like a frantic elephant up hill and down hill, his ponderous
hoofs striking the prairie like sledge-hammers. He showed a curious
mixture of eagerness and terror, straining to overtake the panic-
stricken herd, but constantly recoiling in dismay as we drew near.
The fugitives, indeed, offered no very attractive spectacle, with
their enormous size and weight, their shaggy manes and the tattered
remnants of their last winter's hair covering their backs in
irregular shreds and patches, and flying off in the wind as they ran.
At length I urged my horse close behind a bull, and after trying in
vain, by blows and spurring, to bring him alongside, I shot a bullet
into the buffalo from this disadvantageous position. At the report,
Pontiac swerved so much that I was again thrown a little behind the
game. The bullet, entering too much in the rear, failed to disable
the bull, for a buffalo requires to be shot at particular points, or
he will certainly escape. The herd ran up a hill, and I followed in
pursuit. As Pontiac rushed headlong down on the other side, I saw
Shaw and Henry descending the hollow on the right, at a leisurely
gallop; and in front, the buffalo were just disappearing behind the
crest of the next hill, their short tails erect, and their hoofs
twinkling through a cloud of dust.

At that moment, I heard Shaw and Henry shouting to me; but the
muscles of a stronger arm than mine could not have checked at once
the furious course of Pontiac, whose mouth was as insensible as
leather. Added to this, I rode him that morning with a common
snaffle, having the day before, for the benefit of my other horse,
unbuckled from my bridle the curb which I ordinarily used. A
stronger and hardier brute never trod the prairie; but the novel
sight of the buffalo filled him with terror, and when at full speed
he was almost incontrollable. Gaining the top of the ridge, I saw
nothing of the buffalo; they had all vanished amid the intricacies of
the hills and hollows. Reloading my pistols, in the best way I
could, I galloped on until I saw them again scuttling along at the
base of the hill, their panic somewhat abated. Down went old Pontiac
among them, scattering them to the right and left, and then we had
another long chase. About a dozen bulls were before us, scouring
over the hills, rushing down the declivities with tremendous weight
and impetuosity, and then laboring with a weary gallop upward. Still
Pontiac, in spite of spurring and beating, would not close with them.
One bull at length fell a little behind the rest, and by dint of much
effort I urged my horse within six or eight yards of his side. His
back was darkened with sweat; he was panting heavily, while his
tongue lolled out a foot from his jaws. Gradually I came up abreast
of him, urging Pontiac with leg and rein nearer to his side, then
suddenly he did what buffalo in such circumstances will always do; he
slackened his gallop, and turning toward us, with an aspect of
mingled rage and distress, lowered his huge shaggy head for a charge.
Pontiac with a snort, leaped aside in terror, nearly throwing me to
the ground, as I was wholly unprepared for such an evolution. I
raised my pistol in a passion to strike him on the head, but thinking
better of it fired the bullet after the bull, who had resumed his
flight, then drew rein and determined to rejoin my companions. It
was high time. The breath blew hard from Pontiac's nostrils, and the
sweat rolled in big drops down his sides; I myself felt as if
drenched in warm water. Pledging myself (and I redeemed the pledge)
to take my revenge at a future opportunity, I looked round for some
indications to show me where I was, and what course I ought to
pursue; I might as well have looked for landmarks in the midst of the
ocean. How many miles I had run or in what direction, I had no idea;
and around me the prairie was rolling in steep swells and pitches,
without a single distinctive feature to guide me. I had a little
compass hung at my neck; and ignorant that the Platte at this point
diverged considerably from its easterly course, I thought that by
keeping to the northward I should certainly reach it. So I turned
and rode about two hours in that direction. The prairie changed as I
advanced, softening away into easier undulations, but nothing like
the Platte appeared, nor any sign of a human being; the same wild
endless expanse lay around me still; and to all appearance I was as
far from my object as ever. I began now to consider myself in danger
of being lost; and therefore, reining in my horse, summoned the
scanty share of woodcraft that I possessed (if that term he
applicable upon the prairie) to extricate me. Looking round, it
occurred to me that the buffalo might prove my best guides. I soon
found one of the paths made by them in their passage to the river; it
ran nearly at right angles to my course; but turning my horse's head
in the direction it indicated, his freer gait and erected ears
assured me that I was right.

But in the meantime my ride had been by no means a solitary one. The
whole face of the country was dotted far and wide with countless
hundreds of buffalo. They trooped along in files and columns, bulls
cows, and calves, on the green faces of the declivities in front.
They scrambled away over the hills to the right and left; and far
off, the pale blue swells in the extreme distance were dotted with
innumerable specks. Sometimes I surprised shaggy old bulls grazing
alone, or sleeping behind the ridges I ascended. They would leap up
at my approach, stare stupidly at me through their tangled manes, and
then gallop heavily away. The antelope were very numerous; and as
they are always bold when in the neighborhood of buffalo, they would
approach quite near to look at me, gazing intently with their great
round eyes, then suddenly leap aside, and stretch lightly away over
the prairie, as swiftly as a racehorse. Squalid, ruffianlike wolves
sneaked through the hollows and sandy ravines. Several times I
passed through villages of prairie dogs, who sat, each at the mouth
of his burrow, holding his paws before him in a supplicating
attitude, and yelping away most vehemently, energetically whisking
his little tail with every squeaking cry he uttered. Prairie dogs
are not fastidious in their choice of companions; various long,
checkered snakes were sunning themselves in the midst of the village,
and demure little gray owls, with a large white ring around each eye,
were perched side by side with the rightful inhabitants. The prairie
teemed with life. Again and again I looked toward the crowded
hillsides, and was sure I saw horsemen; and riding near, with a
mixture of hope and dread, for Indians were abroad, I found them
transformed into a group of buffalo. There was nothing in human
shape amid all this vast congregation of brute forms.

When I turned down the buffalo path, the prairie seemed changed; only
a wolf or two glided past at intervals, like conscious felons, never
looking to the right or left. Being now free from anxiety, I was at
leisure to observe minutely the objects around me; and here, for the
first time, I noticed insects wholly different from any of the
varieties found farther to the eastward. Gaudy butterflies fluttered
about my horse's head; strangely formed beetles, glittering with
metallic luster, were crawling upon plants that I had never seen
before; multitudes of lizards, too, were darting like lightning over
the sand.

I had run to a great distance from the river. It cost me a long ride
on the buffalo path before I saw from the ridge of a sand-hill the
pale surface of the Platte glistening in the midst of its desert
valleys, and the faint outline of the hills beyond waving along the
sky. From where I stood, not a tree nor a bush nor a living thing
was visible throughout the whole extent of the sun-scorched
landscape. In half an hour I came upon the trail, not far from the
river; and seeing that the party had not yet passed, I turned
eastward to meet them, old Pontiac's long swinging trot again
assuring me that I was right in doing so. Having been slightly ill
on leaving camp in the morning six or seven hours of rough riding had
fatigued me extremely. I soon stopped, therefore; flung my saddle on
the ground, and with my head resting on it, and my horse's trail-rope
tied loosely to my arm, lay waiting the arrival of the party,
speculating meanwhile on the extent of the injuries Pontiac had
received. At length the white wagon coverings rose from the verge of
the plain. By a singular coincidence, almost at the same moment two
horsemen appeared coming down from the hills. They were Shaw and
Henry, who had searched for me a while in the morning, but well
knowing the futility of the attempt in such a broken country, had
placed themselves on the top of the highest hill they could find, and
picketing their horses near them, as a signal to me, had laid down
and fallen asleep. The stray cattle had been recovered, as the
emigrants told us, about noon. Before sunset, we pushed forward
eight miles farther.

JUNE 7, 1846.--Four men are missing; R., Sorel and two emigrants.
They set out this morning after buffalo, and have not yet made their
appearance; whether killed or lost, we cannot tell.

I find the above in my notebook, and well remember the council held
on the occasion. Our fire was the scene of it; or the palpable
superiority of Henry Chatillon's experience and skill made him the
resort of the whole camp upon every question of difficulty. He was
molding bullets at the fire, when the captain drew near, with a
perturbed and care-worn expression of countenance, faithfully
reflected on the heavy features of Jack, who followed close behind.
Then emigrants came straggling from their wagons toward the common
center; various suggestions were made to account for the absence of
the four men, and one or two of the emigrants declared that when out
after the cattle they had seen Indians dogging them, and crawling
like wolves along the ridges of the hills. At this time the captain
slowly shook his head with double gravity, and solemnly remarked:

"It's a serious thing to be traveling through this cursed
wilderness"; an opinion in which Jack immediately expressed a
thorough coincidence. Henry would not commit himself by declaring
any positive opinion.

"Maybe he only follow the buffalo too far; maybe Indian kill him;
maybe he got lost; I cannot tell!"

With this the auditors were obliged to rest content; the emigrants,
not in the least alarmed, though curious to know what had become of
their comrades, walked back to their wagons and the captain betook
himself pensively to his tent. Shaw and I followed his example.

"It will be a bad thing for our plans," said he as we entered, "if
these fellows don't get back safe. The captain is as helpless on the
prairie as a child. We shall have to take him and his brother in
tow; they will hang on us like lead."

"The prairie is a strange place," said I. "A month ago I should have
thought it rather a startling affair to have an acquaintance ride out
in the morning and lose his scalp before night, but here it seems the
most natural thing in the world; not that I believe that R. has lost
his yet."

If a man is constitutionally liable to nervous apprehensions, a tour
on the distant prairies would prove the best prescription; for though
when in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains he may at times find
himself placed in circumstances of some danger, I believe that few
ever breathe that reckless atmosphere without becoming almost
indifferent to any evil chance that may befall themselves or their
friends.

Shaw had a propensity for luxurious indulgence. He spread his
blanket with the utmost accuracy on the ground, picked up the sticks
and stones that he thought might interfere with his comfort, adjusted
his saddle to serve as a pillow, and composed himself for his night's
rest. I had the first guard that evening; so, taking my rifle, I
went out of the tent. It was perfectly dark. A brisk wind blew down
from the hills, and the sparks from the fire were streaming over the
prairie. One of the emigrants, named Morton, was my companion; and
laying our rifles on the grass, we sat down together by the fire.
Morton was a Kentuckian, an athletic fellow, with a fine intelligent
face, and in his manners and conversation he showed the essential
characteristics of a gentleman. Our conversation turned on the
pioneers of his gallant native State. The three hours of our watch
dragged away at last, and we went to call up the relief.

R.'s guard succeeded mine. He was absent; but the captain, anxious
lest the camp should be left defenseless, had volunteered to stand in
his place; so I went to wake him up. There was no occasion for it,
for the captain had been awake since nightfall. A fire was blazing
outside of the tent, and by the light which struck through the
canvas, I saw him and Jack lying on their backs, with their eyes wide
open. The captain responded instantly to my call; he jumped up,
seized the double-barreled rifle, and came out of the tent with an
air of solemn determination, as if about to devote himself to the
safety of the party. I went and lay down, not doubting that for the
next three hours our slumbers would be guarded with sufficient
vigilance.

CHAPTER VIII

TAKING FRENCH LEAVE

On the 8th of June, at eleven o'clock, we reached the South Fork of
the Platte, at the usual fording place. For league upon league the
desert uniformity of the prospect was almost unbroken; the hills were
dotted with little tufts of shriveled grass, but betwixt these the
white sand was glaring in the sun; and the channel of the river,
almost on a level with the plain, was but one great sand-bed, about
half a mile wide. It was covered with water, but so scantily that
the bottom was scarcely hidden; for, wide as it is, the average depth
of the Platte does not at this point exceed a foot and a half.
Stopping near its bank, we gathered bois de vache, and made a meal of
buffalo meat. Far off, on the other side, was a green meadow, where
we could see the white tents and wagons of an emigrant camp; and just
opposite to us we could discern a group of men and animals at the
water's edge. Four or five horsemen soon entered the river, and in
ten minutes had waded across and clambered up the loose sand-bank.
They were ill-looking fellows, thin and swarthy, with care-worn,
anxious faces and lips rigidly compressed. They had good cause for
anxiety; it was three days since they first encamped here, and on the
night of their arrival they had lost 123 of their best cattle, driven
off by the wolves, through the neglect of the man on guard. This
discouraging and alarming calamity was not the first that had
overtaken them. Since leaving the settlements, they had met with
nothing but misfortune. Some of their party had died; one man had
been killed by the Pawnees; and about a week before, they had been
plundered by the Dakotas of all their best horses, the wretched
animals on which our visitors were mounted being the only ones that
were left. They had encamped, they told us, near sunset, by the side
of the Platte, and their oxen were scattered over the meadow, while
the band of horses were feeding a little farther off. Suddenly the
ridges of the hills were alive with a swarm of mounted Indians, at
least six hundred in number, who, with a tremendous yell, came
pouring down toward the camp, rushing up within a few rods, to the
great terror of the emigrants; but suddenly wheeling, they swept
around the band of horses, and in five minutes had disappeared with
their prey through the openings of the hills.

As these emigrants were telling their story, we saw four other men
approaching. They proved to be R. and his companions, who had
encountered no mischance of any kind, but had only wandered too far
in pursuit of the game. They said they had seen no Indians, but only
"millions of buffalo"; and both R. and Sorel had meat dangling behind
their saddles.

The emigrants re-crossed the river, and we prepared to follow. First
the heavy ox-wagons plunged down the bank, and dragged slowly over
the sand-beds; sometimes the hoofs of the oxen were scarcely wetted
by the thin sheet of water; and the next moment the river would be
boiling against their sides, and eddying fiercely around the wheels.
Inch by inch they receded from the shore, dwindling every moment,
until at length they seemed to be floating far in the very middle of
the river. A more critical experiment awaited us; for our little
mule-cart was but ill-fitted for the passage of so swift a stream.
We watched it with anxiety till it seemed to be a little motionless
white speck in the midst of the waters; and it WAS motionless, for it
had stuck fast in a quicksand. The little mules were losing their
footing, the wheels were sinking deeper and deeper, and the water
began to rise through the bottom and drench the goods within. All of
us who had remained on the hither bank galloped to the rescue; the
men jumped into the water, adding their strength to that of the
mules, until by much effort the cart was extricated, and conveyed in
safety across.

As we gained the other bank, a rough group of men surrounded us.
They were not robust, nor large of frame, yet they had an aspect of
hardy endurance. Finding at home no scope for their fiery energies,
they had betaken themselves to the prairie; and in them seemed to be
revived, with redoubled force, that fierce spirit which impelled
their ancestors, scarce more lawless than themselves, from the German
forests, to inundate Europe and break to pieces the Roman empire. A
fortnight afterward this unfortunate party passed Fort Laramie, while
we were there. Not one of their missing oxen had been recovered,
though they had remained encamped a week in search of them; and they
had been compelled to abandon a great part of their baggage and
provisions, and yoke cows and heifers to their wagons to carry them
forward upon their journey, the most toilsome and hazardous part of
which lay still before them.

It is worth noticing that on the Platte one may sometimes see the
shattered wrecks of ancient claw-footed tables, well waxed and
rubbed, or massive bureaus of carved oak. These, many of them no
doubt the relics of ancestral prosperity in the colonial time, must
have encountered strange vicissitudes. Imported, perhaps, originally
from England; then, with the declining fortunes of their owners,
borne across the Alleghenies to the remote wilderness of Ohio or
Kentucky; then to Illinois or Missouri; and now at last fondly stowed
away in the family wagon for the interminable journey to Oregon. But
the stern privations of the way are little anticipated. The
cherished relic is soon flung out to scorch and crack upon the hot
prairie.

We resumed our journey; but we had gone scarcely a mile, when R.
called out from the rear:

"We'll camp here."

"Why do you want to camp? Look at the sun. It is not three o'clock
yet."

"We'll camp here!"

This was the only reply vouchsafed. Delorier was in advance with his
cart. Seeing the mule-wagon wheeling from the track, he began to
turn his own team in the same direction.

"Go on, Delorier," and the little cart advanced again. As we rode
on, we soon heard the wagon of our confederates creaking and jolting
on behind us, and the driver, Wright, discharging a furious volley of
oaths against his mules; no doubt venting upon them the wrath which
he dared not direct against a more appropriate object.

Something of this sort had frequently occurred. Our English friend
was by no means partial to us, and we thought we discovered in his
conduct a deliberate intention to thwart and annoy us, especially by
retarding the movements of the party, which he knew that we, being
Yankees, were anxious to quicken. Therefore, he would insist on
encamping at all unseasonable hours, saying that fifteen miles was a
sufficient day's journey. Finding our wishes systematically
disregarded, we took the direction of affairs into our own hands.
Keeping always in advance, to the inexpressible indignation of R., we
encamped at what time and place we thought proper, not much caring
whether the rest chose to follow or not. They always did so,
however, pitching their tents near ours, with sullen and wrathful
countenances.

Traveling together on these agreeable terms did not suit our tastes;
for some time we had meditated a separation. The connection with
this party had cost us various delays and inconveniences; and the
glaring want of courtesy and good sense displayed by their virtual
leader did not dispose us to bear these annoyances with much
patience. We resolved to leave camp early in the morning, and push
forward as rapidly as possible for Fort Laramie, which we hoped to
reach, by hard traveling, in four or five days. The captain soon
trotted up between us, and we explained our intentions.

"A very extraordinary proceeding, upon my word!" he remarked. Then
he began to enlarge upon the enormity of the design. The most
prominent impression in his mind evidently was that we were acting a
base and treacherous part in deserting his party, in what he
considered a very dangerous stage of the journey. To palliate the
atrocity of our conduct, we ventured to suggest that we were only
four in number while his party still included sixteen men; and as,
moreover, we were to go forward and they were to follow, at least a
full proportion of the perils he apprehended would fall upon us. But
the austerity of the captain's features would not relax. "A very
extraordinary proceeding, gentlemen!" and repeating this, he rode off
to confer with his principal.

By good luck, we found a meadow of fresh grass, and a large pool of
rain-water in the midst of it. We encamped here at sunset. Plenty
of buffalo skulls were lying around, bleaching in the sun; and
sprinkled thickly among the grass was a great variety of strange
flowers. I had nothing else to do, and so gathering a handful, I sat
down on a buffalo skull to study them. Although the offspring of a
wilderness, their texture was frail and delicate, and their colors
extremely rich; pure white, dark blue, and a transparent crimson.
One traveling in this country seldom has leisure to think of anything
but the stern features of the scenery and its accompaniments, or the
practical details of each day's journey. Like them, he and his
thoughts grow hard and rough. But now these flowers suddenly
awakened a train of associations as alien to the rude scene around me
as they were themselves; and for the moment my thoughts went back to
New England. A throng of fair and well-remembered faces rose,
vividly as life, before me. "There are good things," thought I, "in
the savage life, but what can it offer to replace those powerful and
ennobling influences that can reach unimpaired over more than three
thousand miles of mountains, forests and deserts?"

Before sunrise on the next morning our tent was down; we harnessed
our best horses to the cart and left the camp. But first we shook
hands with our friends the emigrants, who sincerely wished us a safe
journey, though some others of the party might easily have been
consoled had we encountered an Indian war party on the way. The
captain and his brother were standing on the top of a hill, wrapped
in their plaids, like spirits of the mist, keeping an anxious eye on
the band of horses below. We waved adieu to them as we rode off the
ground. The captain replied with a salutation of the utmost dignity,
which Jack tried to imitate; but being little practiced in the
gestures of polite society, his effort was not a very successful one.

In five minutes we had gained the foot of the hills, but here we came
to a stop. Old Hendrick was in the shafts, and being the very
incarnation of perverse and brutish obstinacy, he utterly refused to
move. Delorier lashed and swore till he was tired, but Hendrick
stood like a rock, grumbling to himself and looking askance at his
enemy, until he saw a favorable opportunity to take his revenge, when
he struck out under the shaft with such cool malignity of intention
that Delorier only escaped the blow by a sudden skip into the air,
such as no one but a Frenchman could achieve. Shaw and he then
joined forces, and lashed on both sides at once. The brute stood
still for a while till he could bear it no longer, when all at once
he began to kick and plunge till he threatened the utter demolition
of the cart and harness. We glanced back at the camp, which was in
full sight. Our companions, inspired by emulation, were leveling
their tents and driving in their cattle and horses.

"Take the horse out," said I.

I took the saddle from Pontiac and put it upon Hendrick; the former
was harnessed to the cart in an instant. "Avance donc!" cried
Delorier. Pontiac strode up the hill, twitching the little cart
after him as if it were a feather's weight; and though, as we gained
the top, we saw the wagons of our deserted comrades just getting into
motion, we had little fear that they could overtake us. Leaving the
trail, we struck directly across the country, and took the shortest
cut to reach the main stream of the Platte. A deep ravine suddenly
intercepted us. We skirted its sides until we found them less
abrupt, and then plunged through the best way we could. Passing
behind the sandy ravines called "Ash Hollow," we stopped for a short
nooning at the side of a pool of rain-water; but soon resumed our
journey, and some hours before sunset were descending the ravines and
gorges opening downward upon the Platte to the west of Ash Hollow.
Our horses waded to the fetlock in sand; the sun scorched like fire,
and the air swarmed with sand-flies and mosquitoes.

At last we gained the Platte. Following it for about five miles, we
saw, just as the sun was sinking, a great meadow, dotted with
hundreds of cattle, and beyond them an emigrant encampment. A party
of about a dozen came out to meet us, looking upon us at first with
cold and suspicious faces. Seeing four men, different in appearance
and equipment from themselves, emerging from the hills, they had
taken us for the van of the much-dreaded Mormons, whom they were very
apprehensive of encountering. We made known our true character, and
then they greeted us cordially. They expressed much surprise that so
small a party should venture to traverse that region, though in fact
such attempts are not unfrequently made by trappers and Indian
traders. We rode with them to their camp. The wagons, some fifty in
number, with here and there a tent intervening, were arranged as
usual in a circle; in the area within the best horses were picketed,
and the whole circumference was glowing with the dusky light of the
fires, displaying the forms of the women and children who were
crowded around them. This patriarchal scene was curious and striking
enough; but we made our escape from the place with all possible
dispatch, being tormented by the intrusive curiosity of the men who
crowded around us. Yankee curiosity was nothing to theirs. They
demanded our names, where we came from, where we were going, and what
was our business. The last query was particularly embarrassing;
since traveling in that country, or indeed anywhere, from any other
motive than gain, was an idea of which they took no cognizance. Yet
they were fine-looking fellows, with an air of frankness, generosity,
and even courtesy, having come from one of the least barbarous of the
frontier counties.

We passed about a mile beyond them, and encamped. Being too few in
number to stand guard without excessive fatigue, we extinguished our
fire, lest it should attract the notice of wandering Indians; and
picketing our horses close around us, slept undisturbed till morning.
For three days we traveled without interruption, and on the evening
of the third encamped by the well-known spring on Scott's Bluff.

Henry Chatillon and I rode out in the morning, and descending the
western side of the Bluff, were crossing the plain beyond. Something
that seemed to me a file of buffalo came into view, descending the
hills several miles before us. But Henry reined in his horse, and
keenly peering across the prairie with a better and more practiced
eye, soon discovered its real nature. "Indians!" he said. "Old
Smoke's lodges, I b'lieve. Come! let us go! Wah! get up, now, Five
Hundred Dollar!"  And laying on the lash with good will, he galloped
forward, and I rode by his side. Not long after, a black speck
became visible on the prairie, full two miles off. It grew larger
and larger; it assumed the form of a man and horse; and soon we could
discern a naked Indian, careering at full gallop toward us. When
within a furlong he wheeled his horse in a wide circle, and made him
describe various mystic figures upon the prairie; and Henry
immediately compelled Five Hundred Dollar to execute similar
evolutions. "It IS Old Smoke's village," said he, interpreting these
signals; "didn't I say so?"

As the Indian approached we stopped to wait for him, when suddenly he
vanished, sinking, as it were, into the earth. He had come upon one
of the deep ravines that everywhere intersect these prairies. In an
instant the rough head of his horse stretched upward from the edge
and the rider and steed came scrambling out, and hounded up to us; a
sudden jerk of the rein brought the wild panting horse to a full
stop. Then followed the needful formality of shaking hands. I
forget our visitor's name. He was a young fellow, of no note in his
nation; yet in his person and equipments he was a good specimen of a
Dakota warrior in his ordinary traveling dress. Like most of his
people, he was nearly six feet high; lithely and gracefully, yet
strongly proportioned; and with a skin singularly clear and delicate.
He wore no paint; his head was bare; and his long hair was gathered
in a clump behind, to the top of which was attached transversely,
both by way of ornament and of talisman, the mystic whistle, made of
the wingbone of the war eagle, and endowed with various magic
virtues. From the back of his head descended a line of glittering
brass plates, tapering from the size of a doubloon to that of a half-
dime, a cumbrous ornament, in high vogue among the Dakotas, and for
which they pay the traders a most extravagant price; his chest and
arms were naked, the buffalo robe, worn over them when at rest, had
fallen about his waist, and was confined there by a belt. This, with
the gay moccasins on his feet, completed his attire. For arms he
carried a quiver of dogskin at his back, and a rude but powerful bow
in his hand. His horse had no bridle; a cord of hair, lashed around
his jaw, served in place of one. The saddle was of most singular
construction; it was made of wood covered with raw hide, and both
pommel and cantle rose perpendicularly full eighteen inches, so that
the warrior was wedged firmly in his seat, whence nothing could
dislodge him but the bursting of the girths.

Advancing with our new companion, we found more of his people seated
in a circle on the top of a hill; while a rude procession came
straggling down the neighboring hollow, men, women, and children,
with horses dragging the lodge-poles behind them. All that morning,
as we moved forward, tall savages were stalking silently about us.
At noon we reached Horse Creek; and as we waded through the shallow
water, we saw a wild and striking scene. The main body of the
Indians had arrived before us. On the farther bank stood a large and
strong man, nearly naked, holding a white horse by a long cord, and
eyeing us as we approached. This was the chief, whom Henry called
"Old Smoke."  Just behind him his youngest and favorite squaw sat
astride of a fine mule; it was covered with caparisons of whitened
skins, garnished with blue and white beads, and fringed with little
ornaments of metal that tinkled with every movement of the animal.
The girl had a light clear complexion, enlivened by a spot of
vermilion on each cheek; she smiled, not to say grinned, upon us,
showing two gleaming rows of white teeth. In her hand, she carried
the tall lance of her unchivalrous lord, fluttering with feathers;
his round white shield hung at the side of her mule; and his pipe was
slung at her back. Her dress was a tunic of deerskin, made
beautifully white by means of a species of clay found on the prairie,
and ornamented with beads, arrayed in figures more gay than tasteful,
and with long fringes at all the seams. Not far from the chief stood
a group of stately figures, their white buffalo robes thrown over
their shoulders, gazing coldly upon us; and in the rear, for several
acres, the ground was covered with a temporary encampment; men,
women, and children swarmed like bees; hundreds of dogs, of all sizes
and colors, ran restlessly about; and, close at hand, the wide
shallow stream was alive with boys, girls, and young squaws,
splashing, screaming, and laughing in the water. At the same time a
long train of emigrant wagons were crossing the creek, and dragging
on in their slow, heavy procession, passed the encampment of the
people whom they and their descendants, in the space of a century,
are to sweep from the face of the earth.

The encampment itself was merely a temporary one during the heat of
the day. None of the lodges were erected; but their heavy leather
coverings, and the long poles used to support them, were scattered
everywhere around, among weapons, domestic utensils, and the rude
harness of mules and horses. The squaws of each lazy warrior had
made him a shelter from the sun, by stretching a few buffalo robes,
or the corner of a lodge-covering upon poles; and here he sat in the
shade, with a favorite young squaw, perhaps, at his side, glittering
with all imaginable trinkets. Before him stood the insignia of his
rank as a warrior, his white shield of bull-hide, his medicine bag,
his bow and quiver, his lance and his pipe, raised aloft on a tripod
of three poles. Except the dogs, the most active and noisy tenants
of the camp were the old women, ugly as Macbeth's witches, with their
hair streaming loose in the wind, and nothing but the tattered
fragment of an old buffalo robe to hide their shriveled wiry limbs.
The day of their favoritism passed two generations ago; now the
heaviest labors of the camp devolved upon them; they were to harness
the horses, pitch the lodges, dress the buffalo robes, and bring in
meat for the hunters. With the cracked voices of these hags, the
clamor of dogs, the shouting and laughing of children and girls, and
the listless tranquillity of the warriors, the whole scene had an
effect too lively and picturesque ever to be forgotten.

We stopped not far from the Indian camp, and having invited some of
the chiefs and warriors to dinner, placed before them a sumptuous
repast of biscuit and coffee. Squatted in a half circle on the
ground, they soon disposed of it. As we rode forward on the
afternoon journey, several of our late guests accompanied us. Among
the rest was a huge bloated savage of more than three hundred pounds'
weight, christened La Cochon, in consideration of his preposterous
dimensions and certain corresponding traits of his character. "The
Hog" bestrode a little white pony, scarce able to bear up under the
enormous burden, though, by way of keeping up the necessary stimulus,
the rider kept both feet in constant motion, playing alternately
against his ribs. The old man was not a chief; he never had ambition
enough to become one; he was not a warrior nor a hunter, for he was
too fat and lazy: but he was the richest man in the whole village.
Riches among the Dakotas consist in horses, and of these The Hog had
accumulated more than thirty. He had already ten times as many as he
wanted, yet still his appetite for horses was insatiable. Trotting
up to me he shook me by the hand, and gave me to understand that he
was a very devoted friend; and then he began a series of most earnest
signs and gesticulations, his oily countenance radiant with smiles,
and his little eyes peeping out with a cunning twinkle from between
the masses of flesh that almost obscured them. Knowing nothing at
that time of the sign language of the Indians, I could only guess at
his meaning. So I called on Henry to explain it.

The Hog, it seems, was anxious to conclude a matrimonial bargain. He
said he had a very pretty daughter in his lodge, whom he would give
me, if I would give him my horse. These flattering overtures I chose
to reject; at which The Hog, still laughing with undiminished good
humor, gathered his robe about his shoulders, and rode away.

Where we encamped that night, an arm of the Platte ran between high
bluffs; it was turbid and swift as heretofore, but trees were growing
on its crumbling banks, and there was a nook of grass between the
water and the hill. Just before entering this place, we saw the
emigrants encamping at two or three miles' distance on the right;
while the whole Indian rabble were pouring down the neighboring hill
in hope of the same sort of entertainment which they had experienced
from us. In the savage landscape before our camp, nothing but the
rushing of the Platte broke the silence. Through the ragged boughs
of the trees, dilapidated and half dead, we saw the sun setting in
crimson behind the peaks of the Black Hills; the restless bosom of
the river was suffused with red; our white tent was tinged with it,
and the sterile bluffs, up to the rocks that crowned them, partook of
the same fiery hue. It soon passed away; no light remained, but that
from our fire, blazing high among the dusky trees and bushes. We lay
around it wrapped in our blankets, smoking and conversing until a
late hour, and then withdrew to our tent.

We crossed a sun-scorched plain on the next morning; the line of old
cotton-wood trees that fringed the bank of the Platte forming its
extreme verge. Nestled apparently close beneath them, we could
discern in the distance something like a building. As we came
nearer, it assumed form and dimensions, and proved to be a rough
structure of logs. It was a little trading fort, belonging to two
private traders; and originally intended, like all the forts of the
country, to form a hollow square, with rooms for lodging and storage
opening upon the area within. Only two sides of it had been
completed; the place was now as ill-fitted for the purposes of
defense as any of those little log-houses, which upon our constantly
shifting frontier have been so often successfully maintained against
overwhelming odds of Indians. Two lodges were pitched close to the
fort; the sun beat scorching upon the logs; no living thing was
stirring except one old squaw, who thrust her round head from the
opening of the nearest lodge, and three or four stout young pups, who
were peeping with looks of eager inquiry from under the covering. In
a moment a door opened, and a little, swarthy black-eyed Frenchman
came out. His dress was rather singular; his black curling hair was
parted in the middle of his head, and fell below his shoulders; he
wore a tight frock of smoked deerskin, very gayly ornamented with
figures worked in dyed porcupine quills. His moccasins and leggings
were also gaudily adorned in the same manner; and the latter had in
addition a line of long fringes, reaching down the seams. The small
frame of Richard, for by this name Henry made him known to us, was in
the highest degree athletic and vigorous. There was no superfluity,
and indeed there seldom is among the active white men of this
country, but every limb was compact and hard; every sinew had its
full tone and elasticity, and the whole man wore an air of mingled
hardihood and buoyancy.

Richard committed our horses to a Navahoe slave, a mean looking
fellow taken prisoner on the Mexican frontier; and, relieving us of
our rifles with ready politeness, led the way into the principal
apartment of his establishment. This was a room ten feet square.
The walls and floor were of black mud, and the roof of rough timber;
there was a huge fireplace made of four flat rocks, picked up on the
prairie. An Indian bow and otter-skin quiver, several gaudy articles
of Rocky Mountain finery, an Indian medicine bag, and a pipe and
tobacco pouch, garnished the walls, and rifles rested in a corner.
There was no furniture except a sort of rough settle covered with
buffalo robes, upon which lolled a tall half-breed, with his hair
glued in masses upon each temple, and saturated with vermilion. Two
or three more "mountain men" sat cross-legged on the floor. Their
attire was not unlike that of Richard himself; but the most striking
figure of the group was a naked Indian boy of sixteen, with a
handsome face, and light, active proportions, who sat in an easy
posture in the corner near the door. Not one of his limbs moved the
breadth of a hair; his eye was fixed immovably, not on any person
present, but, as it appeared, on the projecting corner of the
fireplace opposite to him.

On these prairies the custom of smoking with friends is seldom
omitted, whether among Indians or whites. The pipe, therefore, was
taken from the wall, and its great red bowl crammed with the tobacco
and shongsasha, mixed in suitable proportions. Then it passed round
the circle, each man inhaling a few whiffs and handing it to his
neighbor. Having spent half an hour here, we took our leave; first
inviting our new friends to drink a cup of coffee with us at our
camp, a mile farther up the river. By this time, as the reader may
conceive, we had grown rather shabby; our clothes had burst into rags
and tatters; and what was worse, we had very little means of
renovation. Fort Laramie was but seven miles before us. Being
totally averse to appearing in such plight among any society that
could boast an approximation to the civilized, we soon stopped by the
river to make our toilet in the best way we could. We hung up small
looking-glasses against the trees and shaved, an operation neglected
for six weeks; we performed our ablutions in the Platte, though the
utility of such a proceeding was questionable, the water looking
exactly like a cup of chocolate, and the banks consisting of the
softest and richest yellow mud, so that we were obliged, as a
preliminary, to build a cause-way of stout branches and twigs.
Having also put on radiant moccasins, procured from a squaw of
Richard's establishment, and made what other improvements our narrow
circumstances allowed, we took our seats on the grass with a feeling
of greatly increased respectability, to wait the arrival of our
guests. They came; the banquet was concluded, and the pipe smoked.
Bidding them adieu, we turned our horses' heads toward the fort.

An hour elapsed. The barren hills closed across our front, and we
could see no farther; until having surmounted them, a rapid stream
appeared at the foot of the descent, running into the Platte; beyond
was a green meadow, dotted with bushes, and in the midst of these, at
the point where the two rivers joined, were the low clay walls of a
fort. This was not Fort Laramie, but another post of less recent
date, which having sunk before its successful competitor was now
deserted and ruinous. A moment after the hills, seeming to draw
apart as we advanced, disclosed Fort Laramie itself, its high
bastions and perpendicular walls of clay crowning an eminence on the
left beyond the stream, while behind stretched a line of arid and
desolate ridges, and behind these again, towering aloft seven
thousand feet, arose the grim Black Hills.

We tried to ford Laramie Creek at a point nearly opposite the fort,
but the stream, swollen with the rains in the mountains, was too
rapid. We passed up along its bank to find a better crossing place.
Men gathered on the wall to look at us. "There's Bordeaux!" called
Henry, his face brightening as he recognized his acquaintance; "him
there with the spyglass; and there's old Vaskiss, and Tucker, and
May; and, by George! there's Cimoneau!"  This Cimoneau was Henry's
fast friend, and the only man in the country who could rival him in
hunting.

We soon found a ford. Henry led the way, the pony approaching the
bank with a countenance of cool indifference, bracing his feet and
sliding into the stream with the most unmoved composure.

     At the first plunge the horse sunk low,
     And the water broke o'er the saddle-bow

We followed; the water boiled against our saddles, but our horses
bore us easily through. The unfortunate little mules came near going
down with the current, cart and all; and we watched them with some
solicitude scrambling over the loose round stones at the bottom, and
bracing stoutly against the stream. All landed safely at last; we
crossed a little plain, descended a hollow, and riding up a steep
bank found ourselves before the gateway of Fort Laramie, under the
impending blockhouse erected above it to defend the entrance.

CHAPTER IX

SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE

Looking back, after the expiration of a year, upon Fort Laramie and
its inmates, they seem less like a reality than like some fanciful
picture of the olden time; so different was the scene from any which
this tamer side of the world can present. Tall Indians, enveloped in
their white buffalo robes, were striding across the area or reclining
at full length on the low roofs of the buildings which inclosed it.
Numerous squaws, gayly bedizened, sat grouped in front of the
apartments they occupied; their mongrel offspring, restless and
vociferous, rambled in every direction through the fort; and the
trappers, traders, and ENGAGES of the establishment were busy at
their labor or their amusements.

We were met at the gate, but by no means cordially welcomed. Indeed,
we seemed objects of some distrust and suspicion until Henry
Chatillon explained that we were not traders, and we, in
confirmation, handed to the bourgeois a letter of introduction from
his principals. He took it, turned it upside down, and tried hard to
read it; but his literary attainments not being adequate to the task,
he applied for relief to the clerk, a sleek, smiling Frenchman, named
Montalon. The letter read, Bordeaux (the bourgeois) seemed gradually
to awaken to a sense of what was expected of him. Though not
deficient in hospitable intentions, he was wholly unaccustomed to act
as master of ceremonies. Discarding all formalities of reception, he
did not honor us with a single word, but walked swiftly across the
area, while we followed in some admiration to a railing and a flight
of steps opposite the entrance. He signed to us that we had better
fasten our horses to the railing; then he walked up the steps,
tramped along a rude balcony, and kicking open a door displayed a
large room, rather more elaborately finished than a barn. For
furniture it had a rough bedstead, but no bed; two chairs, a chest of
drawers, a tin pail to hold water, and a board to cut tobacco upon.
A brass crucifix hung on the wall, and close at hand a recent scalp,
with hair full a yard long, was suspended from a nail. I shall again
have occasion to mention this dismal trophy, its history being
connected with that of our subsequent proceedings.

This apartment, the best in Fort Laramie, was that usually occupied
by the legitimate bourgeois, Papin; in whose absence the command
devolved upon Bordeaux. The latter, a stout, bluff little fellow,
much inflated by a sense of his new authority, began to roar for
buffalo robes. These being brought and spread upon the floor formed
our beds; much better ones than we had of late been accustomed to.
Our arrangements made, we stepped out to the balcony to take a more
leisurely survey of the long looked-for haven at which we had arrived
at last. Beneath us was the square area surrounded by little rooms,
or rather cells, which opened upon it. These were devoted to various
purposes, but served chiefly for the accommodation of the men
employed at the fort, or of the equally numerous squaws, whom they
were allowed to maintain in it. Opposite to us rose the blockhouse
above the gateway; it was adorned with a figure which even now haunts
my memory; a horse at full speed, daubed upon the boards with red
paint, and exhibiting a degree of skill which might rival that
displayed by the Indians in executing similar designs upon their
robes and lodges. A busy scene was enacting in the area. The wagons
of Vaskiss, an old trader, were about to set out for a remote post in
the mountains, and the Canadians were going through their
preparations with all possible bustle, while here and there an Indian
stood looking on with imperturbable gravity.

Fort Laramie is one of the posts established by the American Fur
Company, who well-nigh monopolize the Indian trade of this whole
region. Here their officials rule with an absolute sway; the arm of
the United States has little force; for when we were there, the
extreme outposts of her troops were about seven hundred miles to the
eastward. The little fort is built of bricks dried in the sun, and
externally is of an oblong form, with bastions of clay, in the form
of ordinary blockhouses, at two of the corners. The walls are about
fifteen feet high, and surmounted by a slender palisade. The roofs
of the apartments within, which are built close against the walls,
serve the purpose of a banquette. Within, the fort is divided by a
partition; on one side is the square area surrounded by the
storerooms, offices, and apartments of the inmates; on the other is
the corral, a narrow place, encompassed by the high clay walls, where
at night, or in presence of dangerous Indians, the horses and mules
of the fort are crowded for safe-keeping. The main entrance has two
gates, with an arched passage intervening. A little square window,
quite high above the ground, opens laterally from an adjoining
chamber into this passage; so that when the inner gate is closed and
barred, a person without may still hold communication with those
within through this narrow aperture. This obviates the necessity of
admitting suspicious Indians, for purposes of trading, into the body
of the fort; for when danger is apprehended, the inner gate is shut
fast, and all traffic is carried on by means of the little window.
This precaution, though highly necessary at some of the company's
posts, is now seldom resorted to at Fort Laramie; where, though men
are frequently killed in its neighborhood, no apprehensions are now
entertained of any general designs of hostility from the Indians.

We did not long enjoy our new quarters undisturbed. The door was
silently pushed open, and two eyeballs and a visage as black as night
looked in upon us; then a red arm and shoulder intruded themselves,
and a tall Indian, gliding in, shook us by the hand, grunted his
salutation, and sat down on the floor. Others followed, with faces
of the natural hue; and letting fall their heavy robes from their
shoulders, they took their seats, quite at ease, in a semicircle
before us. The pipe was now to be lighted and passed round from one
to another; and this was the only entertainment that at present they
expected from us. These visitors were fathers, brothers, or other
relatives of the squaws in the fort, where they were permitted to
remain, loitering about in perfect idleness. All those who smoked
with us were men of standing and repute. Two or three others dropped
in also; young fellows who neither by their years nor their exploits
were entitled to rank with the old men and warriors, and who, abashed
in the presence of their superiors, stood aloof, never withdrawing
their eyes from us. Their cheeks were adorned with vermilion, their
ears with pendants of shell, and their necks with beads. Never yet
having signalized themselves as hunters, or performed the honorable
exploit of killing a man, they were held in slight esteem, and were
diffident and bashful in proportion. Certain formidable
inconveniences attended this influx of visitors. They were bent on
inspecting everything in the room; our equipments and our dress alike
underwent their scrutiny; for though the contrary has been carelessly
asserted, few beings have more curiosity than Indians in regard to
subjects within their ordinary range of thought. As to other
matters, indeed, they seemed utterly indifferent. They will not
trouble themselves to inquire into what they cannot comprehend, but
are quite contented to place their hands over their mouths in token
of wonder, and exclaim that it is "great medicine."  With this
comprehensive solution, an Indian never is at a loss. He never
launches forth into speculation and conjecture; his reason moves in
its beaten track. His soul is dormant; and no exertions of the
missionaries, Jesuit or Puritan, of the Old World or of the New, have
as yet availed to rouse it.

As we were looking, at sunset, from the wall, upon the wild and
desolate plains that surround the fort, we observed a cluster of
strange objects like scaffolds rising in the distance against the red
western sky. They bore aloft some singular looking burdens; and at
their foot glimmered something white like bones. This was the place
of sepulture of some Dakota chiefs, whose remains their people are
fond of placing in the vicinity of the fort, in the hope that they
may thus be protected from violation at the hands of their enemies.
Yet it has happened more than once, and quite recently, that war
parties of the Crow Indians, ranging through the country, have thrown
the bodies from the scaffolds, and broken them to pieces amid the
yells of the Dakotas, who remained pent up in the fort, too few to
defend the honored relics from insult. The white objects upon the
ground were buffalo skulls, arranged in the mystic circle commonly
seen at Indian places of sepulture upon the prairie.

We soon discovered, in the twilight, a band of fifty or sixty horses
approaching the fort. These were the animals belonging to the
establishment; who having been sent out to feed, under the care of
armed guards, in the meadows below, were now being driven into the
corral for the night. A little gate opened into this inclosure; by
the side of it stood one of the guards, an old Canadian, with gray
bushy eyebrows, and a dragoon pistol stuck into his belt; while his
comrade, mounted on horseback, his rifle laid across the saddle in
front of him, and his long hair blowing before his swarthy face, rode
at the rear of the disorderly troop, urging them up the ascent. In a
moment the narrow corral was thronged with the half-wild horses,
kicking, biting, and crowding restlessly together.

The discordant jingling of a bell, rung by a Canadian in the area,
summoned us to supper. This sumptuous repast was served on a rough
table in one of the lower apartments of the fort, and consisted of
cakes of bread and dried buffalo meat--an excellent thing for
strengthening the teeth. At this meal were seated the bourgeois and
superior dignitaries of the establishment, among whom Henry Chatillon
was worthily included. No sooner was it finished, than the table was
spread a second time (the luxury of bread being now, however,
omitted), for the benefit of certain hunters and trappers of an
inferior standing; while the ordinary Canadian ENGAGES were regaled
on dried meat in one of their lodging rooms. By way of illustrating
the domestic economy of Fort Laramie, it may not be amiss to
introduce in this place a story current among the men when we were
there.

There was an old man named Pierre, whose duty it was to bring the
meat from the storeroom for the men. Old Pierre, in the kindness of
his heart, used to select the fattest and the best pieces for his
companions. This did not long escape the keen-eyed bourgeois, who
was greatly disturbed at such improvidence, and cast about for some
means to stop it. At last he hit on a plan that exactly suited him.
At the side of the meat-room, and separated from it by a clay
partition, was another compartment, used for the storage of furs. It
had no other communication with the fort, except through a square
hole in the partition; and of course it was perfectly dark. One
evening the bourgeois, watching for a moment when no one observed
him, dodged into the meat-room, clambered through the hole, and
ensconced himself among the furs and buffalo robes. Soon after, old
Pierre came in with his lantern; and, muttering to himself, began to
pull over the bales of meat, and select the best pieces, as usual.
But suddenly a hollow and sepulchral voice proceeded from the inner
apartment: "Pierre! Pierre! Let that fat meat alone! Take nothing
but lean!"  Pierre dropped his lantern, and bolted out into the fort,
screaming, in an agony of terror, that the devil was in the
storeroom; but tripping on the threshold, he pitched over upon the
gravel, and lay senseless, stunned by the fall. The Canadians ran
out to the rescue. Some lifted the unlucky Pierre; and others,
making an extempore crucifix out of two sticks, were proceeding to
attack the devil in his stronghold, when the bourgeois, with a crest-
fallen countenance, appeared at the door. To add to the bourgeois'
mortification, he was obliged to explain the whole stratagem to
Pierre, in order to bring the latter to his senses.

We were sitting, on the following morning, in the passage-way between
the gates, conversing with the traders Vaskiss and May. These two
men, together with our sleek friend, the clerk Montalon, were, I
believe, the only persons then in the fort who could read and write.
May was telling a curious story about the traveler Catlin, when an
ugly, diminutive Indian, wretchedly mounted, came up at a gallop, and
rode past us into the fort. On being questioned, he said that
Smoke's village was close at hand. Accordingly only a few minutes
elapsed before the hills beyond the river were covered with a
disorderly swarm of savages, on horseback and on foot. May finished
his story; and by that time the whole array had descended to Laramie
Creek, and commenced crossing it in a mass. I walked down to the
bank. The stream is wide, and was then between three and four feet
deep, with a very swift current. For several rods the water was
alive with dogs, horses, and Indians. The long poles used in
erecting the lodges are carried by the horses, being fastened by the
heavier end, two or three on each side, to a rude sort of pack
saddle, while the other end drags on the ground. About a foot behind
the horse, a kind of large basket or pannier is suspended between the
poles, and firmly lashed in its place on the back of the horse are
piled various articles of luggage; the basket also is well filled
with domestic utensils, or, quite as often, with a litter of puppies,
a brood of small children, or a superannuated old man. Numbers of
these curious vehicles, called, in the bastard language of the
country travaux were now splashing together through the stream.
Among them swam countless dogs, often burdened with miniature
travaux; and dashing forward on horseback through the throng came the
superbly formed warriors, the slender figure of some lynx-eyed boy,
clinging fast behind them. The women sat perched on the pack
saddles, adding not a little to the load of the already overburdened
horses. The confusion was prodigious. The dogs yelled and howled in
chorus; the puppies in the travaux set up a dismal whine as the water
invaded their comfortable retreat; the little black-eyed children,
from one year of age upward, clung fast with both hands to the edge
of their basket, and looked over in alarm at the water rushing so
near them, sputtering and making wry mouths as it splashed against
their faces. Some of the dogs, encumbered by their loads, were
carried down by the current, yelping piteously; and the old squaws
would rush into the water, seize their favorites by the neck, and
drag them out. As each horse gained the bank, he scrambled up as he
could. Stray horses and colts came among the rest, often breaking
away at full speed through the crowd, followed by the old hags,
screaming after their fashion on all occasions of excitement. Buxom
young squaws, blooming in all the charms of vermilion, stood here and
there on the bank, holding aloft their master's lance, as a signal to
collect the scattered portions of his household. In a few moments
the crowd melted away; each family, with its horses and equipage,
filing off to the plain at the rear of the fort; and here, in the
space of half an hour, arose sixty or seventy of their tapering
lodges. Their horses were feeding by hundreds over the surrounding
prairie, and their dogs were roaming everywhere. The fort was full
of men, and the children were whooping and yelling incessantly under
the walls.

These newcomers were scarcely arrived, when Bordeaux was running
across the fort, shouting to his squaw to bring him his spyglass.
The obedient Marie, the very model of a squaw, produced the
instrument, and Bordeaux hurried with it up to the wall. Pointing it
to the eastward, he exclaimed, with an oath, that the families were
coming. But a few moments elapsed before the heavy caravan of the
emigrant wagons could be seen, steadily advancing from the hills.
They gained the river, and without turning or pausing plunged in;
they passed through, and slowly ascending the opposing bank, kept
directly on their way past the fort and the Indian village, until,
gaining a spot a quarter of a mile distant, they wheeled into a
circle. For some time our tranquillity was undisturbed. The
emigrants were preparing their encampment; but no sooner was this
accomplished than Fort Laramie was fairly taken by storm. A crowd of
broad-brimmed hats, thin visages, and staring eyes appeared suddenly
at the gate. Tall awkward men, in brown homespun; women with
cadaverous faces and long lank figures came thronging in together,
and, as if inspired by the very demon of curiosity, ransacked every
nook and corner of the fort. Dismayed at this invasion, we withdrew
in all speed to our chamber, vainly hoping that it might prove an
inviolable sanctuary. The emigrants prosecuted their investigations
with untiring vigor. They penetrated the rooms or rather dens,
inhabited by the astonished squaws. They explored the apartments of
the men, and even that of Marie and the bourgeois. At last a
numerous deputation appeared at our door, but were immediately
expelled. Being totally devoid of any sense of delicacy or
propriety, they seemed resolved to search every mystery to the
bottom.

Having at length satisfied their curiosity, they next proceeded to
business. The men occupied themselves in procuring supplies for
their onward journey; either buying them with money or giving in
exchange superfluous articles of their own.

The emigrants felt a violent prejudice against the French Indians, as
they called the trappers and traders. They thought, and with some
justice, that these men bore them no good will. Many of them were
firmly persuaded that the French were instigating the Indians to
attack and cut them off. On visiting the encampment we were at once
struck with the extraordinary perplexity and indecision that
prevailed among the emigrants. They seemed like men totally out of
their elements; bewildered and amazed, like a troop of school-boys
lost in the woods. It was impossible to be long among them without
being conscious of the high and bold spirit with which most of them
were animated. But the FOREST is the home of the backwoodsman. On
the remote prairie he is totally at a loss. He differs much from the
genuine "mountain man," the wild prairie hunter, as a Canadian
voyageur, paddling his canoe on the rapids of the Ottawa, differs
from an American sailor among the storms of Cape Horn. Still my
companion and I were somewhat at a loss to account for this perturbed
state of mind. It could not be cowardice; these men were of the same
stock with the volunteers of Monterey and Buena Vista. Yet, for the
most part, they were the rudest and most ignorant of the frontier
population; they knew absolutely nothing of the country and its
inhabitants; they had already experienced much misfortune, and
apprehended more; they had seen nothing of mankind, and had never put
their own resources to the test.

A full proportion of suspicion fell upon us. Being strangers we were
looked upon as enemies. Having occasion for a supply of lead and a
few other necessary articles, we used to go over to the emigrant
camps to obtain them. After some hesitation, some dubious glances,
and fumbling of the hands in the pockets, the terms would be agreed
upon, the price tendered, and the emigrant would go off to bring the
article in question. After waiting until our patience gave out, we
would go in search of him, and find him seated on the tongue of his
wagon.

"Well, stranger," he would observe, as he saw us approach, "I reckon
I won't trade!"

Some friend of his followed him from the scene of the bargain and
suggested in his ear, that clearly we meant to cheat him, and he had
better have nothing to do with us.

This timorous mood of the emigrants was doubly unfortunate, as it
exposed them to real danger. Assume, in the presence of Indians a
bold bearing, self-confident yet vigilant, and you will find them
tolerably safe neighbors. But your safety depends on the respect and
fear you are able to inspire. If you betray timidity or indecision,
you convert them from that moment into insidious and dangerous
enemies. The Dakotas saw clearly enough the perturbation of the
emigrants and instantly availed themselves of it. They became
extremely insolent and exacting in their demands. It has become an
established custom with them to go to the camp of every party, at it
arrives in succession at the fort, and demand a feast. Smoke's
village had come with the express design, having made several days'
journey with no other object than that of enjoying a cup of coffee
and two or three biscuits. So the "feast" was demanded, and the
emigrants dared not refuse it.

One evening, about sunset, the village was deserted. We met old men,
warriors, squaws, and children in gay attire, trooping off to the
encampment, with faces of anticipation; and, arriving here, they
seated themselves in a semicircle. Smoke occupied the center, with
his warriors on either hand; the young men and boys next succeeded,
and the squaws and children formed the horns of the crescent. The
biscuit and coffee were most promptly dispatched, the emigrants
staring open-mouthed at their savage guests. With each new emigrant
party that arrived at Fort Laramie this scene was renewed; and every
day the Indians grew more rapacious and presumptuous. One evening
they broke to pieces, out of mere wantonness, the cups from which
they had been feasted; and this so exasperated the emigrants that
many of them seized their rifles and could scarcely be restrained
from firing on the insolent mob of Indians. Before we left the
country this dangerous spirit on the part of the Dakota had mounted
to a yet higher pitch. They began openly to threaten the emigrants
with destruction, and actually fired upon one or two parties of
whites. A military force and military law are urgently called for in
that perilous region; and unless troops are speedily stationed at
Fort Laramie, or elsewhere in the neighborhood, both the emigrants
and other travelers will be exposed to most imminent risks.

The Ogallalla, the Brules, and other western bands of the Dakota, are
thorough savages, unchanged by any contact with civilization. Not
one of them can speak a European tongue, or has ever visited an
American settlement. Until within a year or two, when the emigrants
began to pass through their country on the way to Oregon, they had
seen no whites except the handful employed about the Fur Company's
posts. They esteemed them a wise people, inferior only to
themselves, living in leather lodges, like their own, and subsisting
on buffalo. But when the swarm of MENEASKA, with their oxen and
wagons, began to invade them, their astonishment was unbounded. They
could scarcely believe that the earth contained such a multitude of
white men. Their wonder is now giving way to indignation; and the
result, unless vigilantly guarded against, may be lamentable in the
extreme.

But to glance at the interior of a lodge. Shaw and I used often to
visit them. Indeed, we spent most of our evenings in the Indian
village; Shaw's assumption of the medical character giving us a fair
pretext. As a sample of the rest I will describe one of these
visits. The sun had just set, and the horses were driven into the
corral. The Prairie Cock, a noted beau, came in at the gate with a
bevy of young girls, with whom he began to dance in the area, leading
them round and round in a circle, while he jerked up from his chest a
succession of monotonous sounds, to which they kept time in a rueful
chant. Outside the gate boys and young men were idly frolicking; and
close by, looking grimly upon them, stood a warrior in his robe, with
his face painted jet-black, in token that he had lately taken a
Pawnee scalp. Passing these, the tall dark lodges rose between us
and the red western sky. We repaired at once to the lodge of Old
Smoke himself. It was by no means better than the others; indeed, it
was rather shabby; for in this democratic community, the chief never
assumes superior state. Smoke sat cross-legged on a buffalo robe,
and his grunt of salutation as we entered was unusually cordial, out
of respect no doubt to Shaw's medical character. Seated around the
lodge were several squaws, and an abundance of children. The
complaint of Shaw's patients was, for the most part, a severe
inflammation of the eyes, occasioned by exposure to the sun, a
species of disorder which he treated with some success. He had
brought with him a homeopathic medicine chest, and was, I presume,
the first who introduced that harmless system of treatment among the
Ogallalla. No sooner had a robe been spread at the head of the lodge
for our accommodation, and we had seated ourselves upon it, than a
patient made her appearance; the chief's daughter herself, who, to do
her justice, was the best-looking girl in the village. Being on
excellent terms with the physician, she placed herself readily under
his hands, and submitted with a good grace to his applications,
laughing in his face during the whole process, for a squaw hardly
knows how to smile. This case dispatched, another of a different
kind succeeded. A hideous, emaciated old woman sat in the darkest
corner of the lodge rocking to and fro with pain and hiding her eyes
from the light by pressing the palms of both hands against her face.
At Smoke's command, she came forward, very unwillingly, and exhibited
a pair of eyes that had nearly disappeared from excess of
inflammation. No sooner had the doctor fastened his grips upon her
than she set up a dismal moaning, and writhed so in his grasp that he
lost all patience, but being resolved to carry his point, he
succeeded at last in applying his favorite remedies.

"It is strange," he said, when the operation was finished, "that I
forgot to bring any Spanish flies with me; we must have something
here to answer for a counter-irritant!"

So, in the absence of better, he seized upon a red-hot brand from the
fire, and clapped it against the temple of the old squaw, who set up
an unearthly howl, at which the rest of the family broke out into a
laugh.

During these medical operations Smoke's eldest squaw entered the
lodge, with a sort of stone mallet in her hand. I had observed some
time before a litter of well-grown black puppies, comfortably nestled
among some buffalo robes at one side; but this newcomer speedily
disturbed their enjoyment; for seizing one of them by the hind paw,
she dragged him out, and carrying him to the entrance of the lodge,
hammered him on the head till she killed him. Being quite conscious
to what this preparation tended, I looked through a hole in the back
of the lodge to see the next steps of the process. The squaw,
holding the puppy by the legs, was swinging him to and fro through
the blaze of a fire, until the hair was singed off. This done, she
unsheathed her knife and cut him into small pieces, which she dropped
into a kettle to boil. In a few moments a large wooden dish was set
before us, filled with this delicate preparation. We felt conscious
of the honor. A dog-feast is the greatest compliment a Dakota can
offer to his guest; and knowing that to refuse eating would be an
affront, we attacked the little dog and devoured him before the eyes
of his unconscious parent. Smoke in the meantime was preparing his
great pipe. It was lighted when we had finished our repast, and we
passed it from one to another till the bowl was empty. This done, we
took our leave without further ceremony, knocked at the gate of the
fort, and after making ourselves known were admitted.

One morning, about a week after reaching Fort Laramie, we were
holding our customary Indian levee, when a bustle in the area below
announced a new arrival; and looking down from our balcony, I saw a
familiar red beard and mustache in the gateway. They belonged to the
captain, who with his party had just crossed the stream. We met him
on the stairs as he came up, and congratulated him on the safe
arrival of himself and his devoted companions. But he remembered our
treachery, and was grave and dignified accordingly; a tendency which
increased as he observed on our part a disposition to laugh at him.
After remaining an hour or two at the fort he rode away with his
friends, and we have heard nothing of him since. As for R., he kept
carefully aloof. It was but too evident that we had the unhappiness
to have forfeited the kind regards of our London fellow-traveler.

CHAPTER X

THE WAR PARTIES

The summer of 1846 was a season of much warlike excitement among all
the western bands of the Dakota. In 1845 they encountered great
reverses. Many war parties had been sent out; some of them had been
totally cut off, and others had returned broken and disheartened, so
that the whole nation was in mourning. Among the rest, ten warriors
had gone to the Snake country, led by the son of a prominent
Ogallalla chief, called The Whirlwind. In passing over Laramie
Plains they encountered a superior number of their enemies, were
surrounded, and killed to a man. Having performed this exploit the
Snakes became alarmed, dreading the resentment of the Dakota, and
they hastened therefore to signify their wish for peace by sending
the scalp of the slain partisan, together with a small parcel of
tobacco attached, to his tribesmen and relations. They had employed
old Vaskiss, the trader, as their messenger, and the scalp was the
same that hung in our room at the fort. But The Whirlwind proved
inexorable. Though his character hardly corresponds with his name,
he is nevertheless an Indian, and hates the Snakes with his whole
soul. Long before the scalp arrived he had made his preparations for
revenge. He sent messengers with presents and tobacco to all the
Dakota within three hundred miles, proposing a grand combination to
chastise the Snakes, and naming a place and time of rendezvous. The
plan was readily adopted and at this moment many villages, probably
embracing in the whole five or six thousand souls, were slowly
creeping over the prairies and tending towards the common center at
La Bonte's Camp, on the Platte. Here their war-like rites were to be
celebrated with more than ordinary solemnity, and a thousand
warriors, as it was said, were to set out for the enemy country. The
characteristic result of this preparation will appear in the sequel.

I was greatly rejoiced to hear of it. I had come into the country
almost exclusively with a view of observing the Indian character.
Having from childhood felt a curiosity on this subject, and having
failed completely to gratify it by reading, I resolved to have
recourse to observation. I wished to satisfy myself with regard to
the position of the Indians among the races of men; the vices and the
virtues that have sprung from their innate character and from their
modes of life, their government, their superstitions, and their
domestic situation. To accomplish my purpose it was necessary to
live in the midst of them, and become, as it were, one of them. I
proposed to join a village and make myself an inmate of one of their
lodges; and henceforward this narrative, so far as I am concerned,
will be chiefly a record of the progress of this design apparently so
easy of accomplishment, and the unexpected impediments that opposed
it.

We resolved on no account to miss the rendezvous at La Bonte's Camp.
Our plan was to leave Delorier at the fort, in charge of our equipage
and the better part of our horses, while we took with us nothing but
our weapons and the worst animals we had. In all probability
jealousies and quarrels would arise among so many hordes of fierce
impulsive savages, congregated together under no common head, and
many of them strangers, from remote prairies and mountains. We were
bound in common prudence to be cautious how we excited any feeling of
cupidity. This was our plan, but unhappily we were not destined to
visit La Bonte's Camp in this manner; for one morning a young Indian
came to the fort and brought us evil tidings. The newcomer was a
dandy of the first water. His ugly face was painted with vermilion;
on his head fluttered the tail of a prairie cock (a large species of
pheasant, not found, as I have heard, eastward of the Rocky
Mountains); in his ears were hung pendants of shell, and a flaming
red blanket was wrapped around him. He carried a dragoon sword in
his hand, solely for display, since the knife, the arrow, and the
rifle are the arbiters of every prairie fight; but no one in this
country goes abroad unarmed, the dandy carried a bow and arrows in an
otter-skin quiver at his back. In this guise, and bestriding his
yellow horse with an air of extreme dignity, The Horse, for that was
his name, rode in at the gate, turning neither to the right nor the
left, but casting glances askance at the groups of squaws who, with
their mongrel progeny, were sitting in the sun before their doors.
The evil tidings brought by The Horse were of the following import:
The squaw of Henry Chatillon, a woman with whom he had been connected
for years by the strongest ties which in that country exist between
the sexes, was dangerously ill. She and her children were in the
village of The Whirlwind, at the distance of a few days' journey.
Henry was anxious to see the woman before she died, and provide for
the safety and support of his children, of whom he was extremely
fond. To have refused him this would have been gross inhumanity. We
abandoned our plan of joining Smoke's village, and of proceeding with
it to the rendezvous, and determined to meet The Whirlwind, and go in
his company.

I had been slightly ill for several weeks, but on the third night
after reaching Fort Laramie a violent pain awoke me, and I found
myself attacked by the same disorder that occasioned such heavy
losses to the army on the Rio Grande. In a day and a half I was
reduced to extreme weakness, so that I could not walk without pain
and effort. Having within that time taken six grains of opium,
without the least beneficial effect, and having no medical adviser,
nor any choice of diet, I resolved to throw myself upon Providence
for recovery, using, without regard to the disorder, any portion of
strength that might remain to me. So on the 20th of June we set out
from Fort Laramie to meet The Whirlwind's village. Though aided by
the high-bowed "mountain saddle," I could scarcely keep my seat on
horseback. Before we left the fort we hired another man, a long-
haired Canadian, with a face like an owl's, contrasting oddly enough
with Delorier's mercurial countenance. This was not the only re-
enforcement to our party. A vagrant Indian trader, named Reynal,
joined us, together with his squaw Margot, and her two nephews, our
dandy friend, The Horse, and his younger brother, The Hail Storm.
Thus accompanied, we betook ourselves to the prairie, leaving the
beaten trail, and passing over the desolate hills that flank the
bottoms of Laramie Creek. In all, Indians and whites, we counted
eight men and one woman.

Reynal, the trader, the image of sleek and selfish complacency,
carried The Horse's dragoon sword in his hand, delighting apparently
in this useless parade; for, from spending half his life among
Indians, he had caught not only their habits but their ideas.
Margot, a female animal of more than two hundred pounds' weight, was
couched in the basket of a travail, such as I have before described;
besides her ponderous bulk, various domestic utensils were attached
to the vehicle, and she was leading by a trail-rope a packhorse, who
carried the covering of Reynal's lodge. Delorier walked briskly by
the side of the cart, and Raymond came behind, swearing at the spare
horses, which it was his business to drive. The restless young
Indians, their quivers at their backs, and their bows in their hand,
galloped over the hills, often starting a wolf or an antelope from
the thick growth of wild-sage bushes. Shaw and I were in keeping
with the rest of the rude cavalcade, having in the absence of other
clothing adopted the buckskin attire of the trappers. Henry
Chatillon rode in advance of the whole. Thus we passed hill after
hill and hollow after hollow, a country arid, broken and so parched
by the sun that none of the plants familiar to our more favored soil
would flourish upon it, though there were multitudes of strange
medicinal herbs, more especially the absanth, which covered every
declivity, and cacti were hanging like reptiles at the edges of every
ravine. At length we ascended a high hill, our horses treading upon
pebbles of flint, agate, and rough jasper, until, gaining the top, we
looked down on the wild bottoms of Laramie Creek, which far below us
wound like a writhing snake from side to side of the narrow interval,
amid a growth of shattered cotton-wood and ash trees. Lines of tall
cliffs, white as chalk, shut in this green strip of woods and meadow
land, into which we descended and encamped for the night. In the
morning we passed a wide grassy plain by the river; there was a grove
in front, and beneath its shadows the ruins of an old trading fort of
logs. The grove bloomed with myriads of wild roses, with their sweet
perfume fraught with recollections of home. As we emerged from the
trees, a rattlesnake, as large as a man's arm, and more than four
feet long, lay coiled on a rock, fiercely rattling and hissing at us;
a gray hare, double the size of those in New England, leaped up from
the tall ferns; curlew were screaming over our heads, and a whole
host of little prairie dogs sat yelping at us at the mouths of their
burrows on the dry plain beyond. Suddenly an antelope leaped up from
the wild-sage bushes, gazed eagerly at us, and then, erecting his
white tail, stretched away like a greyhound. The two Indian boys
found a white wolf, as large as a calf in a hollow, and giving a
sharp yell, they galloped after him; but the wolf leaped into the
stream and swam across. Then came the crack of a rifle, the bullet
whistling harmlessly over his head, as he scrambled up the steep
declivity, rattling down stones and earth into the water below.
Advancing a little, we beheld on the farther bank of the stream, a
spectacle not common even in that region; for, emerging from among
the trees, a herd of some two hundred elk came out upon the meadow,
their antlers clattering as they walked forward in dense throng.
Seeing us, they broke into a run, rushing across the opening and
disappearing among the trees and scattered groves. On our left was a
barren prairie, stretching to the horizon; on our right, a deep gulf,
with Laramie Creek at the bottom. We found ourselves at length at
the edge of a steep descent; a narrow valley, with long rank grass
and scattered trees stretching before us for a mile or more along the
course of the stream. Reaching the farther end, we stopped and
encamped. An old huge cotton-wood tree spread its branches
horizontally over our tent. Laramie Creek, circling before our camp,
half inclosed us; it swept along the bottom of a line of tall white
cliffs that looked down on us from the farther bank. There were
dense copses on our right; the cliffs, too, were half hidden by
shrubbery, though behind us a few cotton-wood trees, dotting the
green prairie, alone impeded the view, and friend or enemy could be
discerned in that direction at a mile's distance. Here we resolved
to remain and await the arrival of The Whirlwind, who would certainly
pass this way in his progress toward La Bonte's Camp. To go in
search of him was not expedient, both on account of the broken and
impracticable nature of the country and the uncertainty of his
position and movements; besides, our horses were almost worn out, and
I was in no condition to travel. We had good grass, good water,
tolerable fish from the stream, and plenty of smaller game, such as
antelope and deer, though no buffalo. There was one little drawback
to our satisfaction--a certain extensive tract of bushes and dried
grass, just behind us, which it was by no means advisable to enter,
since it sheltered a numerous brood of rattlesnakes. Henry Chatillon
again dispatched The Horse to the village, with a message to his
squaw that she and her relatives should leave the rest and push on as
rapidly as possible to our camp.

Our daily routine soon became as regular as that of a well-ordered
household. The weather-beaten old tree was in the center; our rifles
generally rested against its vast trunk, and our saddles were flung
on the ground around it; its distorted roots were so twisted as to
form one or two convenient arm-chairs, where we could sit in the
shade and read or smoke; but meal-times became, on the whole, the
most interesting hours of the day, and a bountiful provision was made
for them. An antelope or a deer usually swung from a stout bough,
and haunches were suspended against the trunk. That camp is
daguerreotyped on my memory; the old tree, the white tent, with Shaw
sleeping in the shadow of it, and Reynal's miserable lodge close by
the bank of the stream. It was a wretched oven-shaped structure,
made of begrimed and tattered buffalo hides stretched over a frame of
poles; one side was open, and at the side of the opening hung the
powder horn and bullet pouch of the owner, together with his long red
pipe, and a rich quiver of otterskin, with a bow and arrows; for
Reynal, an Indian in most things but color, chose to hunt buffalo
with these primitive weapons. In the darkness of this cavern-like
habitation, might be discerned Madame Margot, her overgrown bulk
stowed away among her domestic implements, furs, robes, blankets, and
painted cases of PAR' FLECHE, in which dried meat is kept. Here she
sat from sunrise to sunset, a bloated impersonation of gluttony and
laziness, while her affectionate proprietor was smoking, or begging
petty gifts from us, or telling lies concerning his own achievements,
or perchance engaged in the more profitable occupation of cooking
some preparation of prairie delicacies. Reynal was an adept at this
work; he and Delorier have joined forces and are hard at work
together over the fire, while Raymond spreads, by way of tablecloth,
a buffalo hide, carefully whitened with pipeclay, on the grass before
the tent. Here, with ostentatious display, he arranges the teacups
and plates; and then, creeping on all fours like a dog, he thrusts
his head in at the opening of the tent. For a moment we see his
round owlish eyes rolling wildly, as if the idea he came to
communicate had suddenly escaped him; then collecting his scattered
thoughts, as if by an effort, he informs us that supper is ready, and
instantly withdraws.

When sunset came, and at that hour the wild and desolate scene would
assume a new aspect, the horses were driven in. They had been
grazing all day in the neighboring meadow, but now they were picketed
close about the camp. As the prairie darkened we sat and conversed
around the fire, until becoming drowsy we spread our saddles on the
ground, wrapped our blankets around us and lay down. We never placed
a guard, having by this time become too indolent; but Henry Chatillon
folded his loaded rifle in the same blanket with himself, observing
that he always took it to bed with him when he camped in that place.
Henry was too bold a man to use such a precaution without good cause.
We had a hint now and then that our situation was none of the safest;
several Crow war parties were known to be in the vicinity, and one of
them, that passed here some time before, had peeled the bark from a
neighboring tree, and engraved upon the white wood certain
hieroglyphics, to signify that they had invaded the territories of
their enemies, the Dakota, and set them at defiance. One morning a
thick mist covered the whole country. Shaw and Henry went out to
ride, and soon came back with a startling piece of intelligence; they
had found within rifle-shot of our camp the recent trail of about
thirty horsemen. They could not be whites, and they could not be
Dakota, since we knew no such parties to be in the neighborhood;
therefore they must be Crows. Thanks to that friendly mist, we had
escaped a hard battle; they would inevitably have attacked us and our
Indian companions had they seen our camp. Whatever doubts we might
have entertained, were quite removed a day or two after, by two or
three Dakota, who came to us with an account of having hidden in a
ravine on that very morning, from whence they saw and counted the
Crows; they said that they followed them, carefully keeping out of
sight, as they passed up Chugwater; that here the Crows discovered
five dead bodies of Dakota, placed according to the national custom
in trees, and flinging them to the ground, they held their guns
against them and blew them to atoms.

If our camp were not altogether safe, still it was comfortable
enough; at least it was so to Shaw, for I was tormented with illness
and vexed by the delay in the accomplishment of my designs. When a
respite in my disorder gave me some returning strength, I rode out
well-armed upon the prairie, or bathed with Shaw in the stream, or
waged a petty warfare with the inhabitants of a neighborhood prairie-
dog village. Around our fire at night we employed ourselves in
inveighing against the fickleness and inconstancy of Indians, and
execrating The Whirlwind and all his village. At last the thing grew
insufferable.

"To-morrow morning," said I, "I will start for the fort, and see if I
can hear any news there."  Late that evening, when the fire had sunk
low, and all the camp were asleep, a loud cry sounded from the
darkness. Henry started up, recognized the voice, replied to it, and
our dandy friend, The Horse, rode in among us, just returned from his
mission to the village. He coolly picketed his mare, without saying
a word, sat down by the fire and began to eat, but his imperturbable
philosophy was too much for our patience. Where was the village?
about fifty miles south of us; it was moving slowly and would not
arrive in less than a week; and where was Henry's squaw? coming as
fast as she could with Mahto-Tatonka, and the rest of her brothers,
but she would never reach us, for she was dying, and asking every
moment for Henry. Henry's manly face became clouded and downcast; he
said that if we were willing he would go in the morning to find her,
at which Shaw offered to accompany him.

We saddled our horses at sunrise. Reynal protested vehemently
against being left alone, with nobody but the two Canadians and the
young Indians, when enemies were in the neighborhood. Disregarding
his complaints, we left him, and coming to the mouth of Chugwater,
separated, Shaw and Henry turning to the right, up the bank of the
stream, while I made for the fort.

Taking leave for a while of my friend and the unfortunate squaw, I
will relate by way of episode what I saw and did at Fort Laramie. It
was not more than eighteen miles distant, and I reached it in three
hours; a shriveled little figure, wrapped from head to foot in a
dingy white Canadian capote, stood in the gateway, holding by a cord
of bull's hide a shaggy wild horse, which he had lately caught. His
sharp prominent features, and his little keen snakelike eyes, looked
out from beneath the shadowy hood of the capote, which was drawn over
his head exactly like the cowl of a Capuchin friar. His face was
extremely thin and like an old piece of leather, and his mouth spread
from ear to ear. Extending his long wiry hand, he welcomed me with
something more cordial than the ordinary cold salute of an Indian,
for we were excellent friends. He had made an exchange of horses to
our mutual advantage; and Paul, thinking himself well-treated, had
declared everywhere that the white man had a good heart. He was a
Dakota from the Missouri, a reputed son of the half-breed
interpreter, Pierre Dorion, so often mentioned in Irving's "Astoria."  
He said that he was going to Richard's trading house to sell his
horse to some emigrants who were encamped there, and asked me to go
with him. We forded the stream together, Paul dragging his wild
charge behind him. As we passed over the sandy plains beyond, he
grew quite communicative. Paul was a cosmopolitan in his way; he had
been to the settlements of the whites, and visited in peace and war
most of the tribes within the range of a thousand miles. He spoke a
jargon of French and another of English, yet nevertheless he was a
thorough Indian; and as he told of the bloody deeds of his own people
against their enemies, his little eye would glitter with a fierce
luster. He told how the Dakota exterminated a village of the Hohays
on the Upper Missouri, slaughtering men, women, and children; and how
an overwhelming force of them cut off sixteen of the brave Delawares,
who fought like wolves to the last, amid the throng of their enemies.
He told me also another story, which I did not believe until I had it
confirmed from so many independent sources that no room was left for
doubt. I am tempted to introduce it here.

Six years ago a fellow named Jim Beckwith, a mongrel of French,
American, and negro blood, was trading for the Fur Company, in a very
large village of the Crows. Jim Beckwith was last summer at St.
Louis. He is a ruffian of the first stamp; bloody and treacherous,
without honor or honesty; such at least is the character he bears
upon the prairie. Yet in his case all the standard rules of
character fail, for though he will stab a man in his sleep, he will
also perform most desperate acts of daring; such, for instance, as
the following: While he was in the Crow village, a Blackfoot war
party, between thirty and forty in number came stealing through the
country, killing stragglers and carrying off horses. The Crow
warriors got upon their trail and pressed them so closely that they
could not escape, at which the Blackfeet, throwing up a semicircular
breastwork of logs at the foot of a precipice, coolly awaited their
approach. The logs and sticks, piled four or five high, protected
them in front. The Crows might have swept over the breastwork and
exterminated their enemies; but though out-numbering them tenfold,
they did not dream of storming the little fortification. Such a
proceeding would be altogether repugnant to their notions of warfare.
Whooping and yelling, and jumping from side to side like devils
incarnate, they showered bullets and arrows upon the logs; not a
Blackfoot was hurt, but several Crows, in spite of their leaping and
dodging, were shot down. In this childish manner the fight went on
for an hour or two. Now and then a Crow warrior in an ecstasy of
valor and vainglory would scream forth his war song, boasting himself
the bravest and greatest of mankind, and grasping his hatchet, would
rush up and strike it upon the breastwork, and then as he retreated
to his companions, fall dead under a shower of arrows; yet no
combined attack seemed to be dreamed of. The Blackfeet remained
secure in their intrenchment. At last Jim Beckwith lost patience.

"You are all fools and old women," he said to the Crows; "come with
me, if any of you are brave enough, and I will show you how to
fight."

He threw off his trapper's frock of buckskin and stripped himself
naked like the Indians themselves. He left his rifle on the ground,
and taking in his hand a small light hatchet, he ran over the prairie
to the right, concealed by a hollow from the eyes of the Blackfeet.
Then climbing up the rocks, he gained the top of the precipice behind
them. Forty or fifty young Crow warriors followed him. By the cries
and whoops that rose from below he knew that the Blackfeet were just
beneath him; and running forward, he leaped down the rock into the
midst of them. As he fell he caught one by the long loose hair and
dragging him down tomahawked him; then grasping another by the belt
at his waist, he struck him also a stunning blow, and gaining his
feet, shouted the Crow war-cry. He swung his hatchet so fiercely
around him that the astonished Blackfeet bore back and gave him room.
He might, had he chosen, have leaped over the breastwork and escaped;
but this was not necessary, for with devilish yells the Crow warriors
came dropping in quick succession over the rock among their enemies.
The main body of the Crows, too, answered the cry from the front and
rushed up simultaneously. The convulsive struggle within the
breastwork was frightful; for an instant the Blackfeet fought and
yelled like pent-up tigers; but the butchery was soon complete, and
the mangled bodies lay piled up together under the precipice. Not a
Blackfoot made his escape.

As Paul finished his story we came in sight of Richard's Fort. It
stood in the middle of the plain; a disorderly crowd of men around
it, and an emigrant camp a little in front.

"Now, Paul," said I, "where are your Winnicongew lodges?"

"Not come yet," said Paul, "maybe come to-morrow."

Two large villages of a band of Dakota had come three hundred miles
from the Missouri, to join in the war, and they were expected to
reach Richard's that morning. There was as yet no sign of their
approach; so pushing through a noisy, drunken crowd, I entered an
apartment of logs and mud, the largest in the fort; it was full of
men of various races and complexions, all more or less drunk. A
company of California emigrants, it seemed, had made the discovery at
this late day that they had encumbered themselves with too many
supplies for their journey. A part, therefore, they had thrown away
or sold at great loss to the traders, but had determined to get rid
of their copious stock of Missouri whisky, by drinking it on the
spot. Here were maudlin squaws stretched on piles of buffalo robes;
squalid Mexicans, armed with bows and arrows; Indians sedately drunk;
long-haired Canadians and trappers, and American backwoodsmen in
brown homespun, the well-beloved pistol and bowie knife displayed
openly at their sides. In the middle of the room a tall, lank man,
with a dingy broadcloth coat, was haranguing the company in the style
of the stump orator. With one hand he sawed the air, and with the
other clutched firmly a brown jug of whisky, which he applied every
moment to his lips, forgetting that he had drained the contents long
ago. Richard formally introduced me to this personage, who was no
less a man than Colonel R., once the leader of the party. Instantly
the colonel seizing me, in the absence of buttons by the leather
fringes of my frock, began to define his position. His men, he said,
had mutinied and deposed him; but still he exercised over them the
influence of a superior mind; in all but the name he was yet their
chief. As the colonel spoke, I looked round on the wild assemblage,
and could not help thinking that he was but ill qualified to conduct
such men across the desert to California. Conspicuous among the rest
stood three tail young men, grandsons of Daniel Boone. They had
clearly inherited the adventurous character of that prince of
pioneers; but I saw no signs of the quiet and tranquil spirit that so
remarkably distinguished him.

Fearful was the fate that months after overtook some of the members
of that party. General Kearny, on his late return from California,
brought in the account how they were interrupted by the deep snows
among the mountains, and maddened by cold and hunger fed upon each
other's flesh.

I got tired of the confusion. "Come, Paul," said I, "we will be
off."  Paul sat in the sun, under the wall of the fort. He jumped
up, mounted, and we rode toward Fort Laramie. When we reached it, a
man came out of the gate with a pack at his back and a rifle on his
shoulder; others were gathering about him, shaking him by the hand, as
if taking leave. I thought it a strange thing that a man should set
out alone and on foot for the prairie. I soon got an explanation.
Perrault--this, if I recollect right was the Canadian's name--had
quarreled with the bourgeois, and the fort was too hot to hold him.
Bordeaux, inflated with his transient authority, had abused him, and
received a blow in return. The men then sprang at each other, and
grappled in the middle of the fort. Bordeaux was down in an instant,
at the mercy of the incensed Canadian; had not an old Indian, the
brother of his squaw, seized hold of his antagonist, he would have
fared ill. Perrault broke loose from the old Indian, and both the
white men ran to their rooms for their guns; but when Bordeaux,
looking from his door, saw the Canadian, gun in hand, standing in the
area and calling on him to come out and fight, his heart failed him;
he chose to remain where he was. In vain the old Indian, scandalized
by his brother-in-law's cowardice, called upon him to go upon the
prairie and fight it out in the white man's manner; and Bordeaux's
own squaw, equally incensed, screamed to her lord and master that he
was a dog and an old woman. It all availed nothing. Bordeaux's
prudence got the better of his valor, and he would not stir.
Perrault stood showering approbrious epithets at the recent
bourgeois. Growing tired of this, he made up a pack of dried meat,
and slinging it at his back, set out alone for Fort Pierre on the
Missouri, a distance of three hundred miles, over a desert country
full of hostile Indians.

I remained in the fort that night. In the morning, as I was coming
out from breakfast, conversing with a trader named McCluskey, I saw a
strange Indian leaning against the side of the gate. He was a tall,
strong man, with heavy features.

"Who is he?" I asked. "That's The Whirlwind," said McCluskey. "He
is the fellow that made all this stir about the war. It's always the
way with the Sioux; they never stop cutting each other's throats;
it's all they are fit for; instead of sitting in their lodges, and
getting robes to trade with us in the winter. If this war goes on,
we'll make a poor trade of it next season, I reckon."

And this was the opinion of all the traders, who were vehemently
opposed to the war, from the serious injury that it must occasion to
their interests. The Whirlwind left his village the day before to
make a visit to the fort. His warlike ardor had abated not a little
since he first conceived the design of avenging his son's death. The
long and complicated preparations for the expedition were too much
for his fickle, inconstant disposition. That morning Bordeaux
fastened upon him, made him presents and told him that if he went to
war he would destroy his horses and kill no buffalo to trade with the
white men; in short, that he was a fool to think of such a thing, and
had better make up his mind to sit quietly in his lodge and smoke his
pipe, like a wise man. The Whirlwind's purpose was evidently shaken;
he had become tired, like a child, of his favorite plan. Bordeaux
exultingly predicted that he would not go to war. My philanthropy at
that time was no match for my curiosity, and I was vexed at the
possibility that after all I might lose the rare opportunity of
seeing the formidable ceremonies of war. The Whirlwind, however, had
merely thrown the firebrand; the conflagration was become general.
All the western bands of the Dakota were bent on war; and as I heard
from McCluskey, six large villages already gathered on a little
stream, forty miles distant, were daily calling to the Great Spirit
to aid them in their enterprise. McCluskey had just left and
represented them as on their way to La Bonte's Camp, which they would
reach in a week, UNLESS THEY SHOULD LEARN THAT THERE WERE NO BUFFALO
THERE. I did not like this condition, for buffalo this season were
rare in the neighborhood. There were also the two Minnicongew
villages that I mentioned before; but about noon, an Indian came from
Richard's Fort with the news that they were quarreling, breaking up,
and dispersing. So much for the whisky of the emigrants! Finding
themselves unable to drink the whole, they had sold the residue to
these Indians, and it needed no prophet to foretell the results; a
spark dropped into a powder magazine would not have produced a
quicker effect. Instantly the old jealousies and rivalries and
smothered feuds that exist in an Indian village broke out into
furious quarrels. They forgot the warlike enterprise that had
already brought them three hundred miles. They seemed like
ungoverned children inflamed with the fiercest passions of men.
Several of them were stabbed in the drunken tumult; and in the
morning they scattered and moved back toward the Missouri in small
parties. I feared that, after all, the long-projected meeting and
the ceremonies that were to attend it might never take place, and I
should lose so admirable an opportunity of seeing the Indian under
his most fearful and characteristic aspect; however, in foregoing
this, I should avoid a very fair probability of being plundered and
stripped, and, it might be, stabbed or shot into the bargain.
Consoling myself with this reflection, I prepared to carry the news,
such as it was, to the camp.

I caught my horse, and to my vexation found he had lost a shoe and
broken his tender white hoof against the rocks. Horses are shod at
Fort Laramie at the moderate rate of three dollars a foot; so I tied
Hendrick to a beam in the corral, and summoned Roubidou, the
blacksmith. Roubidou, with the hoof between his knees, was at work
with hammer and file, and I was inspecting the process, when a
strange voice addressed me.

Two more gone under! Well, there is more of us left yet. Here's
Jean Gars and me off to the mountains to-morrow. Our turn will come
next, I suppose. It's a hard life, anyhow!"

I looked up and saw a little man, not much more than five feet high,
but of very square and strong proportions. In appearance he was
particularly dingy; for his old buckskin frock was black and polished
with time and grease, and his belt, knife, pouch, and powder-horn
appeared to have seen the roughest service. The first joint of each
foot was entirely gone, having been frozen off several winters
before, and his moccasins were curtailed in proportion. His whole
appearance and equipment bespoke the "free trapper."  He had a round
ruddy face, animated with a spirit of carelessness and gayety not at
all in accordance with the words he had just spoken.

"Two more gone," said I; "what do you mean by that?"

"Oh," said he, "the Arapahoes have just killed two of us in the
mountains. Old Bull-Tail has come to tell us. They stabbed one
behind his back, and shot the other with his own rifle. That's the
way we live here! I mean to give up trapping after this year. My
squaw says she wants a pacing horse and some red ribbons; I'll make
enough beaver to get them for her, and then I'm done! I'll go below
and live on a farm."

"Your bones will dry on the prairie, Rouleau!" said another trapper,
who was standing by; a strong, brutal-looking fellow, with a face as
surly as a bull-dog's.

Rouleau only laughed, and began to hum a tune and shuffle a dance on
his stumps of feet.

"You'll see us, before long, passing up our way," said the other man.
"Well," said I, "stop and take a cup of coffee with us"; and as it
was quite late in the afternoon, I prepared to leave the fort at
once.

As I rode out, a train of emigrant wagons was passing across the
stream. "Whar are ye goin' stranger?"  Thus I was saluted by two or
three voices at once.

"About eighteen miles up the creek."

"It's mighty late to be going that far! Make haste, ye'd better, and
keep a bright lookout for Indians!"

I thought the advice too good to be neglected. Fording the stream, I
passed at a round trot over the plains beyond. But "the more haste,
the worse speed."  I proved the truth in the proverb by the time I
reached the hills three miles from the fort. The trail was faintly
marked, and riding forward with more rapidity than caution, I lost
sight of it. I kept on in a direct line, guided by Laramie Creek,
which I could see at intervals darkly glistening in the evening sun,
at the bottom of the woody gulf on my right. Half an hour before
sunset I came upon its banks. There was something exciting in the
wild solitude of the place. An antelope sprang suddenly from the
sagebushes before me. As he leaped gracefully not thirty yards
before my horse, I fired, and instantly he spun round and fell.
Quite sure of him, I walked my horse toward him, leisurely reloading
my rifle, when to my surprise he sprang up and trotted rapidly away
on three legs into the dark recesses of the hills, whither I had no
time to follow. Ten minutes after, I was passing along the bottom of
a deep valley, and chancing to look behind me, I saw in the dim light
that something was following. Supposing it to be wolf, I slid from
my seat and sat down behind my horse to shoot it; but as it came up,
I saw by its motions that it was another antelope. It approached
within a hundred yards, arched its graceful neck, and gazed intently.
I leveled at the white spot on its chest, and was about to fire when
it started off, ran first to one side and then to the other, like a
vessel tacking against a wind, and at last stretched away at full
speed. Then it stopped again, looked curiously behind it, and
trotted up as before; but not so boldly, for it soon paused and stood
gazing at me. I fired; it leaped upward and fell upon its tracks.
Measuring the distance, I found it 204 paces. When I stood by his
side, the antelope turned his expiring eye upward. It was like a
beautiful woman's, dark and rich. "Fortunate that I am in a hurry,"
thought I; "I might be troubled with remorse, if I had time for it."

Cutting the animal up, not in the most skilled manner, I hung the
meat at the back of my saddle, and rode on again. The hills (I could
not remember one of them) closed around me. "It is too late,"
thought I, "to go forward. I will stay here to-night, and look for
the path in the morning."  As a last effort, however, I ascended a
high hill, from which, to my great satisfaction, I could see Laramie
Creek stretching before me, twisting from side to side amid ragged
patches of timber; and far off, close beneath the shadows of the
trees, the ruins of the old trading fort were visible. I reached
them at twilight. It was far from pleasant, in that uncertain light,
to be pushing through the dense trees and shrubbery of the grove
beyond. I listened anxiously for the footfall of man or beast.
Nothing was stirring but one harmless brown bird, chirping among the
branches. I was glad when I gained the open prairie once more, where
I could see if anything approached. When I came to the mouth of
Chugwater, it was totally dark. Slackening the reins, I let my horse
take his own course. He trotted on with unerring instinct, and by
nine o'clock was scrambling down the steep ascent into the meadows
where we were encamped. While I was looking in vain for the light of
the fire, Hendrick, with keener perceptions, gave a loud neigh, which
was immediately answered in a shrill note from the distance. In a
moment I was hailed from the darkness by the voice of Reynal, who had
come out, rifle in hand, to see who was approaching.

He, with his squaw, the two Canadians and the Indian boys, were the
sole inmates of the camp, Shaw and Henry Chatillon being still
absent. At noon of the following day they came back, their horses
looking none the better for the journey. Henry seemed dejected. The
woman was dead, and his children must henceforward be exposed,
without a protector, to the hardships and vicissitudes of Indian
life. Even in the midst of his grief he had not forgotten his
attachment to his bourgeois, for he had procured among his Indian
relatives two beautifully ornamented buffalo robes, which he spread
on the ground as a present to us.

Shaw lighted his pipe, and told me in a few words the history of his
journey. When I went to the fort they left me, as I mentioned, at
the mouth of Chugwater. They followed the course of the little
stream all day, traversing a desolate and barren country. Several
times they came upon the fresh traces of a large war party--the same,
no doubt, from whom we had so narrowly escaped an attack. At an hour
before sunset, without encountering a human being by the way, they
came upon the lodges of the squaw and her brothers, who, in
compliance with Henry's message, had left the Indian village in order
to join us at our camp. The lodges were already pitched, five in
number, by the side of the stream. The woman lay in one of them,
reduced to a mere skeleton. For some time she had been unable to
move or speak. Indeed, nothing had kept her alive but the hope of
seeing Henry, to whom she was strongly and faithfully attached. No
sooner did he enter the lodge than she revived, and conversed with
him the greater part of the night. Early in the morning she was
lifted into a travail, and the whole party set out toward our camp.
There were but five warriors; the rest were women and children. The
whole were in great alarm at the proximity of the Crow war party, who
would certainly have destroyed them without mercy had they met. They
had advanced only a mile or two, when they discerned a horseman, far
off, on the edge of the horizon. They all stopped, gathering
together in the greatest anxiety, from which they did not recover
until long after the horseman disappeared; then they set out again.
Henry was riding with Shaw a few rods in advance of the Indians, when
Mahto-Tatonka, a younger brother of the woman, hastily called after
them. Turning back, they found all the Indians crowded around the
travail in which the woman was lying. They reached her just in time
to hear the death-rattle in her throat. In a moment she lay dead in
the basket of the vehicle. A complete stillness succeeded; then the
Indians raised in concert their cries of lamentation over the corpse,
and among them Shaw clearly distinguished those strange sounds
resembling the word "Halleluyah," which together with some other
accidental coincidences has given rise to the absurd theory that the
Indians are descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel.

The Indian usage required that Henry, as well as the other relatives
of the woman, should make valuable presents, to be placed by the side
of the body at its last resting place. Leaving the Indians, he and
Shaw set out for the camp and reached it, as we have seen, by hard
pushing, at about noon. Having obtained the necessary articles, they
immediately returned. It was very late and quite dark when they
again reached the lodges. They were all placed in a deep hollow
among the dreary hills. Four of them were just visible through the
gloom, but the fifth and largest was illuminated by the ruddy blaze
of a fire within, glowing through the half-transparent covering of
raw hides. There was a perfect stillness as they approached. The
lodges seemed without a tenant. Not a living thing was stirring--
there was something awful in the scene. They rode up to the entrance
of the lodge, and there was no sound but the tramp of their horses.
A squaw came out and took charge of the animals, without speaking a
word. Entering, they found the lodge crowded with Indians; a fire
was burning in the midst, and the mourners encircled it in a triple
row. Room was made for the newcomers at the head of the lodge, a
robe spread for them to sit upon, and a pipe lighted and handed to
them in perfect silence. Thus they passed the greater part of the
night. At times the fire would subside into a heap of embers, until
the dark figures seated around it were scarcely visible; then a squaw
would drop upon it a piece of buffalo-fat, and a bright flame,
instantly springing up, would reveal of a sudden the crowd of wild
faces, motionless as bronze. The silence continued unbroken. It was
a relief to Shaw when daylight returned and he could escape from this
house of mourning. He and Henry prepared to return homeward; first,
however, they placed the presents they had brought near the body of
the squaw, which, most gaudily attired, remained in a sitting posture
in one of the lodges. A fine horse was picketed not far off,
destined to be killed that morning for the service of her spirit, for
the woman was lame, and could not travel on foot over the dismal
prairies to the villages of the dead. Food, too, was provided, and
household implements, for her use upon this last journey.

Henry left her to the care of her relatives, and came immediately
with Shaw to the camp. It was some time before he entirely recovered
from his dejection.

CHAPTER XI

SCENES AT THE CAMP

Reynal heard guns fired one day, at the distance of a mile or two
from the camp. He grew nervous instantly. Visions of Crow war
parties began to haunt his imagination; and when we returned (for we
were all absent), he renewed his complaints about being left alone
with the Canadians and the squaw. The day after, the cause of the
alarm appeared. Four trappers, one called Moran, another Saraphin,
and the others nicknamed "Rouleau" and "Jean Gras," came to our camp
and joined us. They it was who fired the guns and disturbed the
dreams of our confederate Reynal. They soon encamped by our side.
Their rifles, dingy and battered with hard service, rested with ours
against the old tree; their strong rude saddles, their buffalo robes,
their traps, and the few rough and simple articles of their traveling
equipment, were piled near our tent. Their mountain horses were
turned to graze in the meadow among our own; and the men themselves,
no less rough and hardy, used to lie half the day in the shade of our
tree lolling on the grass, lazily smoking, and telling stories of
their adventures; and I defy the annals of chivalry to furnish the
record of a life more wild and perilous than that of a Rocky Mountain
trapper.

With this efficient re-enforcement the agitation of Reynal's nerves
subsided. He began to conceive a sort of attachment to our old
camping ground; yet it was time to change our quarters, since
remaining too long on one spot must lead to certain unpleasant
results not to be borne with unless in a case of dire necessity. The
grass no longer presented a smooth surface of turf; it was trampled
into mud and clay. So we removed to another old tree, larger yet,
that grew by the river side at a furlong's distance. Its trunk was
full six feet in diameter; on one side it was marked by a party of
Indians with various inexplicable hieroglyphics, commemorating some
warlike enterprise, and aloft among the branches were the remains of
a scaffolding, where dead bodies had once been deposited, after the
Indian manner.

"There comes Bull-Bear," said Henry Chatillon, as we sat on the grass
at dinner. Looking up, we saw several horsemen coming over the
neighboring hill, and in a moment four stately young men rode up and
dismounted. One of them was Bull-Bear, or Mahto-Tatonka, a compound
name which he inherited from his father, the most powerful chief in
the Ogallalla band. One of his brothers and two other young men
accompanied him. We shook hands with the visitors, and when we had
finished our meal--for this is the orthodox manner of entertaining
Indians, even the best of them--we handed to each a tin cup of coffee
and a biscuit, at which they ejaculated from the bottom of their
throats, 'How! how!" a monosyllable by which an Indian contrives to
express half the emotions that he is susceptible of. Then we lighted
the pipe, and passed it to them as they squatted on the ground.

"Where is the village?"

"There," said Mahto-Tatonka, pointing southward; "it will come in two
days."

"Will they go to the war?"

"Yes."

No man is a philanthropist on the prairie. We welcomed this news
most cordially, and congratulated ourselves that Bordeaux's
interested efforts to divert The Whirlwind from his congenial
vocation of bloodshed had failed of success, and that no additional
obstacles would interpose between us and our plan of repairing to the
rendezvous at La Bonte's Camp.

For that and several succeeding days, Mahto-Tatonka and his friends
remained our guests. They devoured the relics of our meals; they
filled the pipe for us and also helped us to smoke it. Sometimes
they stretched themselves side by side in the shade, indulging in
raillery and practical jokes ill becoming the dignity of brave and
aspiring warriors, such as two of them in reality were.

Two days dragged away, and on the morning of the third we hoped
confidently to see the Indian village. It did not come; so we rode
out to look for it. In place of the eight hundred Indians we
expected, we met one solitary savage riding toward us over the
prairie, who told us that the Indians had changed their plans, and
would not come within three days; still he persisted that they were
going to the war. Taking along with us this messenger of evil
tidings, we retraced our footsteps to the camp, amusing ourselves by
the way with execrating Indian inconstancy. When we came in sight of
our little white tent under the big tree, we saw that it no longer
stood alone. A huge old lodge was erected close by its side,
discolored by rain and storms, rotted with age, with the uncouth
figures of horses and men, and outstretched hands that were painted
upon it, well-nigh obliterated. The long poles which supported this
squalid habitation thrust themselves rakishly out from its pointed
top, and over its entrance were suspended a "medicine-pipe" and
various other implements of the magic art. While we were yet at a
distance, we observed a greatly increased population of various
colors and dimensions, swarming around our quiet encampment. Moran,
the trapper, having been absent for a day or two, had returned, it
seemed, bringing all his family with him. He had taken to himself a
wife for whom he had paid the established price of one horse. This
looks cheap at first sight, but in truth the purchase of a squaw is a
transaction which no man should enter into without mature
deliberation, since it involves not only the payment of the first
price, but the formidable burden of feeding and supporting a
rapacious horde of the bride's relatives, who hold themselves
entitled to feed upon the indiscreet white man. They gather round
like leeches, and drain him of all he has.

Moran, like Reynal, had not allied himself to an aristocratic circle.
His relatives occupied but a contemptible position in Ogallalla
society; for among those wild democrats of the prairie, as among us,
there are virtual distinctions of rank and place; though this great
advantage they have over us, that wealth has no part in determining
such distinctions. Moran's partner was not the most beautiful of her
sex, and he had the exceedingly bad taste to array her in an old
calico gown bought from an emigrant woman, instead of the neat and
graceful tunic of whitened deerskin worn ordinarily by the squaws.
The moving spirit of the establishment, in more senses than one, was
a hideous old hag of eighty. Human imagination never conceived
hobgoblin or witch more ugly than she. You could count all her ribs
through the wrinkles of the leathery skin that covered them. Her
withered face more resembled an old skull than the countenance of a
living being, even to the hollow, darkened sockets, at the bottom of
which glittered her little black eyes. Her arms had dwindled away
into nothing but whipcord and wire. Her hair, half black, half gray,
hung in total neglect nearly to the ground, and her sole garment
consisted of the remnant of a discarded buffalo robe tied round her
waist with a string of hide. Yet the old squaw's meager anatomy was
wonderfully strong. She pitched the lodge, packed the horses, and
did the hardest labor of the camp. From morning till night she
bustled about the lodge, screaming like a screech-owl when anything
displeased her. Then there was her brother, a "medicine-man," or
magician, equally gaunt and sinewy with herself. His mouth spread
from ear to ear, and his appetite, as we had full occasion to learn,
was ravenous in proportion. The other inmates of the lodge were a
young bride and bridegroom; the latter one of those idle, good-for
nothing fellows who infest an Indian village as well as more
civilized communities. He was fit neither for hunting nor for war;
and one might infer as much from the stolid unmeaning expression of
his face. The happy pair had just entered upon the honeymoon. They
would stretch a buffalo robe upon poles, so as to protect them from
the fierce rays of the sun, and spreading beneath this rough canopy a
luxuriant couch of furs, would sit affectionately side by side for
half the day, though I could not discover that much conversation
passed between them. Probably they had nothing to say; for an
Indian's supply of topics for conversation is far from being copious.
There were half a dozen children, too, playing and whooping about the
camp, shooting birds with little bows and arrows, or making miniature
lodges of sticks, as children of a different complexion build houses
of blocks.

A day passed, and Indians began rapidly to come in. Parties of two
or three or more would ride up and silently seat themselves on the
grass. The fourth day came at last, when about noon horsemen
suddenly appeared into view on the summit of the neighboring ridge.
They descended, and behind them followed a wild procession, hurrying
in haste and disorder down the hill and over the plain below; horses,
mules, and dogs, heavily burdened travaux, mounted warriors, squaws
walking amid the throng, and a host of children. For a full half-
hour they continued to pour down; and keeping directly to the bend of
the stream, within a furlong of us, they soon assembled there, a dark
and confused throng, until, as if by magic, 150 tall lodges sprung
up. On a sudden the lonely plain was transformed into the site of a
miniature city. Countless horses were soon grazing over the meadows
around us, and the whole prairie was animated by restless figures
careening on horseback, or sedately stalking in their long white
robes. The Whirlwind was come at last! One question yet remained to
be answered: "Will he go to the war, in order that we, with so
respectable an escort, may pass over to the somewhat perilous
rendezvous at La Bonte's Camp?"

Still this remained in doubt. Characteristic indecision perplexed
their councils. Indians cannot act in large bodies. Though their
object be of the highest importance, they cannot combine to attain it
by a series of connected efforts. King Philip, Pontiac, and Tecumseh
all felt this to their cost. The Ogallalla once had a war chief who
could control them; but he was dead, and now they were left to the
sway of their own unsteady impulses.

This Indian village and its inhabitants will hold a prominent place
in the rest of the narrative, and perhaps it may not be amiss to
glance for an instant at the savage people of which they form a part.
The Dakota (I prefer this national designation to the unmeaning
French name, Sioux) range over a vast territory, from the river St.
Peter's to the Rocky Mountains themselves. They are divided into
several independent bands, united under no central government, and
acknowledge no common head. The same language, usages, and
superstitions form the sole bond between them. They do not unite
even in their wars. The bands of the east fight the Ojibwas on the
Upper Lakes; those of the west make incessant war upon the Snake
Indians in the Rocky Mountains. As the whole people is divided into
bands, so each band is divided into villages. Each village has a
chief, who is honored and obeyed only so far as his personal
qualities may command respect and fear. Sometimes he is a mere
nominal chief; sometimes his authority is little short of absolute,
and his fame and influence reach even beyond his own village; so that
the whole band to which he belongs is ready to acknowledge him as
their head. This was, a few years since, the case with the
Ogallalla. Courage, address, and enterprise may raise any warrior to
the highest honor, especially if he be the son of a former chief, or
a member of a numerous family, to support him and avenge his
quarrels; but when he has reached the dignity of chief, and the old
men and warriors, by a peculiar ceremony, have formally installed
him, let it not be imagined that he assumes any of the outward
semblances of rank and honor. He knows too well on how frail a
tenure he holds his station. He must conciliate his uncertain
subjects. Many a man in the village lives better, owns more squaws
and more horses, and goes better clad than he. Like the Teutonic
chiefs of old, he ingratiates himself with his young men by making
them presents, thereby often impoverishing himself. Does he fail in
gaining their favor, they will set his authority at naught, and may
desert him at any moment; for the usages of his people have provided
no sanctions by which he may enforce his authority. Very seldom does
it happen, at least among these western bands, that a chief attains
to much power, unless he is the head of a numerous family.
Frequently the village is principally made up of his relatives and
descendants, and the wandering community assumes much of the
patriarchal character. A people so loosely united, torn, too, with
ranking feuds and jealousies, can have little power or efficiency.

The western Dakota have no fixed habitations. Hunting and fighting,
they wander incessantly through summer and winter. Some are
following the herds of buffalo over the waste of prairie; others are
traversing the Black Hills, thronging on horseback and on foot
through the dark gulfs and somber gorges beneath the vast splintering
precipices, and emerging at last upon the "Parks," those beautiful
but most perilous hunting grounds. The buffalo supplies them with
almost all the necessaries of life; with habitations, food, clothing,
and fuel; with strings for their bows, with thread, cordage, and
trail-ropes for their horses, with coverings for their saddles, with
vessels to hold water, with boats to cross streams, with glue, and
with the means of purchasing all that they desire from the traders.
When the buffalo are extinct, they too must dwindle away.

War is the breath of their nostrils. Against most of the neighboring
tribes they cherish a deadly, rancorous hatred, transmitted from
father to son, and inflamed by constant aggression and retaliation.
Many times a year, in every village, the Great Spirit is called upon,
fasts are made, the war parade is celebrated, and the warriors go out
by handfuls at a time against the enemy. This fierce and evil spirit
awakens their most eager aspirations, and calls forth their greatest
energies. It is chiefly this that saves them from lethargy and utter
abasement. Without its powerful stimulus they would be like the
unwarlike tribes beyond the mountains, who are scattered among the
caves and rocks like beasts, living on roots and reptiles. These
latter have little of humanity except the form; but the proud and
ambitious Dakota warrior can sometimes boast of heroic virtues. It
is very seldom that distinction and influence are attained among them
by any other course than that of arms. Their superstition, however,
sometimes gives great power, to those among them who pretend to the
character of magicians. Their wild hearts, too, can feel the power
of oratory, and yield deference to the masters of it.

But to return. Look into our tent, or enter, if you can bear the
stifling smoke and the close atmosphere. There, wedged close
together, you will see a circle of stout warriors, passing the pipe
around, joking, telling stories, and making themselves merry, after
their fashion. We were also infested by little copper-colored naked
boys and snake-eyed girls. They would come up to us, muttering
certain words, which being interpreted conveyed the concise
invitation, "Come and eat."  Then we would rise, cursing the
pertinacity of Dakota hospitality, which allowed scarcely an hour of
rest between sun and sun, and to which we were bound to do honor,
unless we would offend our entertainers. This necessity was
particularly burdensome to me, as I was scarcely able to walk, from
the effects of illness, and was of course poorly qualified to dispose
of twenty meals a day. Of these sumptuous banquets I gave a specimen
in a former chapter, where the tragical fate of the little dog was
chronicled. So bounteous an entertainment looks like an outgushing
of good will; but doubtless one-half at least of our kind hosts, had
they met us alone and unarmed on the prairie, would have robbed us of
our horses, and perchance have bestowed an arrow upon us beside.
Trust not an Indian. Let your rifle be ever in your hand. Wear next
your heart the old chivalric motto SEMPER PARATUS.

One morning we were summoned to the lodge of an old man, in good
truth the Nestor of his tribe. We found him half sitting, half
reclining on a pile of buffalo robes; his long hair, jet-black even
now, though he had seen some eighty winters, hung on either side of
his thin features. Those most conversant with Indians in their homes
will scarcely believe me when I affirm that there was dignity in his
countenance and mien. His gaunt but symmetrical frame, did not more
clearly exhibit the wreck of bygone strength, than did his dark,
wasted features, still prominent and commanding, bear the stamp of
mental energies. I recalled, as I saw him, the eloquent metaphor of
the Iroquois sachem: "I am an aged hemlock; the winds of a hundred
winters have whistled through my branches, and I am dead at the top!"  
Opposite the patriarch was his nephew, the young aspirant Mahto-
Tatonka; and besides these, there were one or two women in the lodge.

The old man's story is peculiar, and singularly illustrative of a
superstitious custom that prevails in full force among many of the
Indian tribes. He was one of a powerful family, renowned for their
warlike exploits. When a very young man, he submitted to the
singular rite to which most of the tribe subject themselves before
entering upon life. He painted his face black; then seeking out a
cavern in a sequestered part of the Black Hills, he lay for several
days, fasting and praying to the Great Spirit. In the dreams and
visions produced by his weakened and excited state, he fancied like
all Indians, that he saw supernatural revelations. Again and again
the form of an antelope appeared before him. The antelope is the
graceful peace spirit of the Ogallalla; but seldom is it that such a
gentle visitor presents itself during the initiatory fasts of their
young men. The terrible grizzly bear, the divinity of war, usually
appears to fire them with martial ardor and thirst for renown. At
length the antelope spoke. He told the young dreamer that he was not
to follow the path of war; that a life of peace and tranquillity was
marked out for him; that henceforward he was to guide the people by
his counsels and protect them from the evils of their own feuds and
dissensions. Others were to gain renown by fighting the enemy; but
greatness of a different kind was in store for him.

The visions beheld during the period of this fast usually determine
the whole course of the dreamer's life, for an Indian is bound by
iron superstitions. From that time, Le Borgne, which was the only
name by which we knew him, abandoned all thoughts of war and devoted
himself to the labors of peace. He told his vision to the people.
They honored his commission and respected him in his novel capacity.

A far different man was his brother, Mahto-Tatonka, who had
transmitted his names, his features, and many of his characteristic
qualities to his son. He was the father of Henry Chatillon's squaw,
a circumstance which proved of some advantage to us, as securing for
us the friendship of a family perhaps the most distinguished and
powerful in the whole Ogallalla band. Mahto-Tatonka, in his rude
way, was a hero. No chief could vie with him in warlike renown, or
in power over his people. He had a fearless spirit, and a most
impetuous and inflexible resolution. His will was law. He was
politic and sagacious, and with true Indian craft he always
befriended the whites, well knowing that he might thus reap great
advantages for himself and his adherents. When he had resolved on
any course of conduct, he would pay to the warriors the empty
compliment of calling them together to deliberate upon it, and when
their debates were over, he would quietly state his own opinion,
which no one ever disputed. The consequences of thwarting his
imperious will were too formidable to be encountered. Woe to those
who incurred his displeasure! He would strike them or stab them on
the spot; and this act, which, if attempted by any other chief, would
instantly have cost him his life, the awe inspired by his name
enabled him to repeat again and again with impunity. In a community
where, from immemorial time, no man has acknowledged any law but his
own will, Mahto-Tatonka, by the force of his dauntless resolution,
raised himself to power little short of despotic. His haughty career
came at last to an end. He had a host of enemies only waiting for
their opportunity of revenge, and our old friend Smoke, in
particular, together with all his kinsmen, hated him most cordially.
Smoke sat one day in his lodge in the midst of his own village, when
Mahto-Tatonka entered it alone, and approaching the dwelling of his
enemy, called on him in a loud voice to come out, if he were a man,
and fight. Smoke would not move. At this, Mahto-Tatonka proclaimed
him a coward and an old woman, and striding close to the entrance of
the lodge, stabbed the chief's best horse, which was picketed there.
Smoke was daunted, and even this insult failed to call him forth.
Mahto-Tatonka moved haughtily away; all made way for him, but his
hour of reckoning was near.

One hot day, five or six years ago, numerous lodges of Smoke's
kinsmen were gathered around some of the Fur Company's men, who were
trading in various articles with them, whisky among the rest. Mahto-
Tatonka was also there with a few of his people. As he lay in his
own lodge, a fray arose between his adherents and the kinsmen of his
enemy. The war-whoop was raised, bullets and arrows began to fly,
and the camp was in confusion. The chief sprang up, and rushing in a
fury from the lodge shouted to the combatants on both sides to cease.
Instantly--for the attack was preconcerted--came the reports of two
or three guns, and the twanging of a dozen bows, and the savage hero,
mortally wounded, pitched forward headlong to the ground. Rouleau
was present, and told me the particulars. The tumult became general,
and was not quelled until several had fallen on both sides. When we
were in the country the feud between the two families was still
rankling, and not likely soon to cease.

Thus died Mahto-Tatonka, but he left behind him a goodly army of
descendants, to perpetuate his renown and avenge his fate. Besides
daughters he had thirty sons, a number which need not stagger the
credulity of those who are best acquainted with Indian usages and
practices. We saw many of them, all marked by the same dark
complexion and the same peculiar cast of features. Of these our
visitor, young Mahto-Tatonka, was the eldest, and some reported him
as likely to succeed to his father's honors. Though he appeared not
more than twenty-one years old, he had oftener struck the enemy, and
stolen more horses and more squaws than any young man in the village.
We of the civilized world are not apt to attach much credit to the
latter species of exploits; but horse-stealing is well known as an
avenue to distinction on the prairies, and the other kind of
depredation is esteemed equally meritorious. Not that the act can
confer fame from its own intrinsic merits. Any one can steal a
squaw, and if he chooses afterward to make an adequate present to her
rightful proprietor, the easy husband for the most part rests
content, his vengeance falls asleep, and all danger from that quarter
is averted. Yet this is esteemed but a pitiful and mean-spirited
transaction. The danger is averted, but the glory of the achievement
also is lost. Mahto-Tatonka proceeded after a more gallant and
dashing fashion. Out of several dozen squaws whom he had stolen, he
could boast that he had never paid for one, but snapping his fingers
in the face of the injured husband, had defied the extremity of his
indignation, and no one yet had dared to lay the finger of violence
upon him. He was following close in the footsteps of his father.
The young men and the young squaws, each in their way, admired him.
The one would always follow him to war, and he was esteemed to have
unrivaled charm in the eyes of the other. Perhaps his impunity may
excite some wonder. An arrow shot from a ravine, a stab given in the
dark, require no great valor, and are especially suited to the Indian
genius; but Mahto-Tatonka had a strong protection. It was not alone
his courage and audacious will that enabled him to career so
dashingly among his compeers. His enemies did not forget that he was
one of thirty warlike brethren, all growing up to manhood. Should
they wreak their anger upon him, many keen eyes would be ever upon
them, many fierce hearts would thirst for their blood. The avenger
would dog their footsteps everywhere. To kill Mahto-Tatonka would be
no better than an act of suicide.

Though he found such favor in the eyes of the fair, he was no dandy.
As among us those of highest worth and breeding are most simple in
manner and attire, so our aspiring young friend was indifferent to
the gaudy trappings and ornaments of his companions. He was content
to rest his chances of success upon his own warlike merits. He never
arrayed himself in gaudy blanket and glittering necklaces, but left
his statue-like form, limbed like an Apollo of bronze, to win its way
to favor. His voice was singularly deep and strong. It sounded from
his chest like the deep notes of an organ. Yet after all, he was but
an Indian. See him as he lies there in the sun before our tent,
kicking his heels in the air and cracking jokes with his brother.
Does he look like a hero? See him now in the hour of his glory, when
at sunset the whole village empties itself to behold him, for to-
morrow their favorite young partisan goes out against the enemy. His
superb headdress is adorned with a crest of the war eagle's feathers,
rising in a waving ridge above his brow, and sweeping far behind him.
His round white shield hangs at his breast, with feathers radiating
from the center like a star. His quiver is at his back; his tall
lance in his hand, the iron point flashing against the declining sun,
while the long scalp-locks of his enemies flutter from the shaft.
Thus, gorgeous as a champion in his panoply, he rides round and round
within the great circle of lodges, balancing with a graceful buoyancy
to the free movements of his war horse, while with a sedate brow he
sings his song to the Great Spirit. Young rival warriors look
askance at him; vermilion-cheeked girls gaze in admiration, boys
whoop and scream in a thrill of delight, and old women yell forth his
name and proclaim his praises from lodge to lodge.

Mahto-Tatonka, to come back to him, was the best of all our Indian
friends. Hour after hour and day after day, when swarms of savages
of every age, sex, and degree beset our camp, he would lie in our
tent, his lynx eye ever open to guard our property from pillage.

The Whirlwind invited us one day to his lodge. The feast was
finished, and the pipe began to circulate. It was a remarkably large
and fine one, and I expressed my admiration of its form and
dimensions.

"If the Meneaska likes the pipe," asked The Whirlwind, "why does he
not keep it?"

Such a pipe among the Ogallalla is valued at the price of a horse. A
princely gift, thinks the reader, and worthy of a chieftain and a
warrior. The Whirlwind's generosity rose to no such pitch. He gave
me the pipe, confidently expecting that I in return should make him a
present of equal or superior value. This is the implied condition of
every gift among the Indians as among the Orientals, and should it
not be complied with the present is usually reclaimed by the giver.
So I arranged upon a gaudy calico handkerchief, an assortment of
vermilion, tobacco, knives, and gunpowder, and summoning the chief to
camp, assured him of my friendship and begged his acceptance of a
slight token of it. Ejaculating HOW! HOW! he folded up the offerings
and withdrew to his lodge.

Several days passed and we and the Indians remained encamped side by
side. They could not decide whether or not to go to war. Toward
evening, scores of them would surround our tent, a picturesque group.
Late one afternoon a party of them mounted on horseback came suddenly
in sight from behind some clumps of bushes that lined the bank of the
stream, leading with them a mule, on whose back was a wretched negro,
only sustained in his seat by the high pommel and cantle of the
Indian saddle. His cheeks were withered and shrunken in the hollow
of his jaws; his eyes were unnaturally dilated, and his lips seemed
shriveled and drawn back from his teeth like those of a corpse. When
they brought him up before our tent, and lifted him from the saddle,
he could not walk or stand, but he crawled a short distance, and with
a look of utter misery sat down on the grass. All the children and
women came pouring out of the lodges round us, and with screams and
cries made a close circle about him, while he sat supporting himself
with his hands, and looking from side to side with a vacant stare.
The wretch was starving to death! For thirty-three days he had
wandered alone on the prairie, without weapon of any kind; without
shoes, moccasins, or any other clothing than an old jacket and
pantaloons; without intelligence and skill to guide his course, or
any knowledge of the productions of the prairie. All this time he
had subsisted on crickets and lizards, wild onions, and three eggs
which he found in the nest of a prairie dove. He had not seen a
human being. Utterly bewildered in the boundless, hopeless desert
that stretched around him, offering to his inexperienced eye no mark
by which to direct his course, he had walked on in despair till he
could walk no longer, and then crawled on his knees until the bone
was laid bare. He chose the night for his traveling, lying down by
day to sleep in the glaring sun, always dreaming, as he said, of the
broth and corn cake he used to eat under his old master's shed in
Missouri. Every man in the camp, both white and red, was astonished
at his wonderful escape not only from starvation but from the grizzly
bears which abound in that neighborhood, and the wolves which howled
around him every night.

Reynal recognized him the moment the Indians brought him in. He had
run away from his master about a year before and joined the party of
M. Richard, who was then leaving the frontier for the mountains. He
had lived with Richard ever since, until in the end of May he with
Reynal and several other men went out in search of some stray horses,
when he got separated from the rest in a storm, and had never been
heard of up to this time. Knowing his inexperience and helplessness,
no one dreamed that he could still be living. The Indians had found
him lying exhausted on the ground.

As he sat there with the Indians gazing silently on him, his haggard
face and glazed eye were disgusting to look upon. Delorier made him
a bowl of gruel, but he suffered it to remain untasted before him.
At length he languidly raised the spoon to his lips; again he did so,
and again; and then his appetite seemed suddenly inflamed into
madness, for he seized the bowl, swallowed all its contents in a few
seconds, and eagerly demanded meat. This we refused, telling him to
wait until morning, but he begged so eagerly that we gave him a small
piece, which he devoured, tearing it like a dog. He said he must
have more. We told him that his life was in danger if he ate so
immoderately at first. He assented, and said he knew he was a fool
to do so, but he must have meat. This we absolutely refused, to the
great indignation of the senseless squaws, who, when we were not
watching him, would slyly bring dried meat and POMMES BLANCHES, and
place them on the ground by his side. Still this was not enough for
him. When it grew dark he contrived to creep away between the legs
of the horses and crawl over to the Indian village, about a furlong
down the stream. Here he fed to his heart's content, and was brought
back again in the morning, when Jean Gras, the trapper, put him on
horseback and carried him to the fort. He managed to survive the
effects of his insane greediness, and though slightly deranged when
we left this part of the country, he was otherwise in tolerable
health, and expressed his firm conviction that nothing could ever
kill him.

When the sun was yet an hour high, it was a gay scene in the village.
The warriors stalked sedately among the lodges, or along the margin
of the streams, or walked out to visit the bands of horses that were
feeding over the prairie. Half the village population deserted the
close and heated lodges and betook themselves to the water; and here
you might see boys and girls and young squaws splashing, swimming,
and diving beneath the afternoon sun, with merry laughter and
screaming. But when the sun was just resting above the broken peaks,
and the purple mountains threw their prolonged shadows for miles over
the prairie; when our grim old tree, lighted by the horizontal rays,
assumed an aspect of peaceful repose, such as one loves after scenes
of tumult and excitement; and when the whole landscape of swelling
plains and scattered groves was softened into a tranquil beauty, then
our encampment presented a striking spectacle. Could Salvator Rosa
have transferred it to his canvas, it would have added new renown to
his pencil. Savage figures surrounded our tent, with quivers at
their backs, and guns, lances, or tomahawks in their hands. Some sat
on horseback, motionless as equestrian statues, their arms crossed on
their breasts, their eyes fixed in a steady unwavering gaze upon us.
Some stood erect, wrapped from head to foot in their long white robes
of buffalo hide. Some sat together on the grass, holding their
shaggy horses by a rope, with their broad dark busts exposed to view
as they suffered their robes to fall from their shoulders. Others
again stood carelessly among the throng, with nothing to conceal the
matchless symmetry of their forms; and I do not exaggerate when I say
that only on the prairie and in the Vatican have I seen such
faultless models of the human figure. See that warrior standing by
the tree, towering six feet and a half in stature. Your eyes may
trace the whole of his graceful and majestic height, and discover no
defect or blemish. With his free and noble attitude, with the bow in
his hand, and the quiver at his back, he might seem, but for his
face, the Pythian Apollo himself. Such a figure rose before the
imagination of West, when on first seeing the Belvidere in the
Vatican, he exclaimed, "By God, a Mohawk!"

When the sky darkened and the stars began to appear; when the prairie
was involved in gloom and the horses were driven in and secured
around the camp, the crowd began to melt away. Fires gleamed around,
duskily revealing the rough trappers and the graceful Indians. One
of the families near us would always be gathered about a bright
blaze, that displayed the shadowy dimensions of their lodge, and sent
its lights far up among the masses of foliage above, gilding the dead
and ragged branches. Withered witchlike hags flitted around the
blaze, and here for hour after hour sat a circle of children and
young girls, laughing and talking, their round merry faces glowing in
the ruddy light. We could hear the monotonous notes of the drum from
the Indian village, with the chant of the war song, deadened in the
distance, and the long chorus of quavering yells, where the war dance
was going on in the largest lodge. For several nights, too, we could
hear wild and mournful cries, rising and dying away like the
melancholy voice of a wolf. They came from the sisters and female
relatives of Mahto-Tatonka, who were gashing their limbs with knives,
and bewailing the death of Henry Chatillon's squaw. The hour would
grow late before all retired to rest in the camp. Then the embers of
the fires would be glowing dimly, the men would be stretched in their
blankets on the ground, and nothing could be heard but the restless
motions of the crowded horses.

I recall these scenes with a mixed feeling of pleasure and pain. At
this time I was so reduced by illness that I could seldom walk
without reeling like a drunken man, and when I rose from my seat upon
the ground the landscape suddenly grew dim before my eyes, the trees
and lodges seemed to sway to and fro, and the prairie to rise and
fall like the swells of the ocean. Such a state of things is by no
means enviable anywhere. In a country where a man's life may at any
moment depend on the strength of his arm, or it may be on the
activity of his legs, it is more particularly inconvenient. Medical
assistance of course there was none; neither had I the means of
pursuing a system of diet; and sleeping on a damp ground, with an
occasional drenching from a shower, would hardly be recommended as
beneficial. I sometimes suffered the extremity of languor and
exhaustion, and though at the time I felt no apprehensions of the
final result, I have since learned that my situation was a critical
one.

Besides other formidable inconveniences I owe it in a great measure
to the remote effects of that unlucky disorder that from deficient
eyesight I am compelled to employ the pen of another in taking down
this narrative from my lips; and I have learned very effectually that
a violent attack of dysentery on the prairie is a thing too serious
for a joke. I tried repose and a very sparing diet. For a long
time, with exemplary patience, I lounged about the camp, or at the
utmost staggered over to the Indian village, and walked faint and
dizzy among the lodges. It would not do, and I bethought me of
starvation. During five days I sustained life on one small biscuit a
day. At the end of that time I was weaker than before, but the
disorder seemed shaken in its stronghold and very gradually I began
to resume a less rigid diet. No sooner had I done so than the same
detested symptoms revisited me; my old enemy resumed his pertinacious
assaults, yet not with his former violence or constancy, and though
before I regained any fair portion of my ordinary strength weeks had
elapsed, and months passed before the disorder left me, yet thanks to
old habits of activity, and a merciful Providence, I was able to
sustain myself against it.

I used to lie languid and dreamy before our tent and muse on the past
and the future, and when most overcome with lassitude, my eyes turned
always toward the distant Black Hills. There is a spirit of energy
and vigor in mountains, and they impart it to all who approach their
presence. At that time I did not know how many dark superstitions
and gloomy legends are associated with those mountains in the minds
of the Indians, but I felt an eager desire to penetrate their hidden
recesses, to explore the awful chasms and precipices, the black
torrents, the silent forests, that I fancied were concealed there.

CHAPTER XII

ILL LUCK

A Canadian came from Fort Laramie, and brought a curious piece of
intelligence. A trapper, fresh from the mountains, had become
enamored of a Missouri damsel belonging to a family who with other
emigrants had been for some days encamped in the neighborhood of the
fort. If bravery be the most potent charm to win the favor of the
fair, then no wooer could be more irresistible than a Rocky Mountain
trapper. In the present instance, the suit was not urged in vain.
The lovers concerted a scheme, which they proceeded to carry into
effect with all possible dispatch. The emigrant party left the fort,
and on the next succeeding night but one encamped as usual, and
placed a guard. A little after midnight the enamored trapper drew
near, mounted on a strong horse and leading another by the bridle.
Fastening both animals to a tree, he stealthily moved toward the
wagons, as if he were approaching a band of buffalo. Eluding the
vigilance of the guard, who was probably half asleep, he met his
mistress by appointment at the outskirts of the camp, mounted her on
his spare horse, and made off with her through the darkness. The
sequel of the adventure did not reach our ears, and we never learned
how the imprudent fair one liked an Indian lodge for a dwelling, and
a reckless trapper for a bridegroom.

At length The Whirlwind and his warriors determined to move. They
had resolved after all their preparations not to go to the rendezvous
at La Bonte's Camp, but to pass through the Black Hills and spend a
few weeks in hunting the buffalo on the other side, until they had
killed enough to furnish them with a stock of provisions and with
hides to make their lodges for the next season. This done, they were
to send out a small independent war party against the enemy. Their
final determination left us in some embarrassment. Should we go to
La Bonte's Camp, it was not impossible that the other villages would
prove as vacillating and indecisive as The Whirlwinds, and that no
assembly whatever would take place. Our old companion Reynal had
conceived a liking for us, or rather for our biscuit and coffee, and
for the occasional small presents which we made him. He was very
anxious that we should go with the village which he himself intended
to accompany. He declared he was certain that no Indians would meet
at the rendezvous, and said moreover that it would be easy to convey
our cart and baggage through the Black Hills. In saying this, he
told as usual an egregious falsehood. Neither he nor any white man
with us had ever seen the difficult and obscure defiles through which
the Indians intended to make their way. I passed them afterward, and
had much ado to force my distressed horse along the narrow ravines,
and through chasms where daylight could scarcely penetrate. Our cart
might as easily have been conveyed over the summit of Pike's Peak.
Anticipating the difficulties and uncertainties of an attempt to
visit the rendezvous, we recalled the old proverb about "A bird in
the hand," and decided to follow the village.

Both camps, the Indians' and our own, broke up on the morning of the
1st of July. I was so weak that the aid of a potent auxiliary, a
spoonful of whisky swallowed at short intervals, alone enabled me to
sit on my hardy little mare Pauline through the short journey of that
day. For half a mile before us and half a mile behind, the prairie
was covered far and wide with the moving throng of savages. The
barren, broken plain stretched away to the right and left, and far in
front rose the gloomy precipitous ridge of the Black Hills. We
pushed forward to the head of the scattered column, passing the
burdened travaux, the heavily laden pack horses, the gaunt old women
on foot, the gay young squaws on horseback, the restless children
running among the crowd, old men striding along in their white
buffalo robes, and groups of young warriors mounted on their best
horses. Henry Chatillon, looking backward over the distant prairie,
exclaimed suddenly that a horseman was approaching, and in truth we
could just discern a small black speck slowly moving over the face of
a distant swell, like a fly creeping on a wall. It rapidly grew
larger as it approached.

"White man, I b'lieve," said Henry; "look how he ride! Indian never
ride that way. Yes; he got rifle on the saddle before him."

The horseman disappeared in a hollow of the prairie, but we soon saw
him again, and as he came riding at a gallop toward us through the
crowd of Indians, his long hair streaming in the wind behind him, we
recognized the ruddy face and old buckskin frock of Jean Gras the
trapper. He was just arrived from Fort Laramie, where he had been on
a visit, and said he had a message for us. A trader named Bisonette,
one of Henry's friends, was lately come from the settlements, and
intended to go with a party of men to La Bonte's Camp, where, as Jean
Gras assured us, ten or twelve villages of Indians would certainly
assemble. Bisonette desired that we would cross over and meet him
there, and promised that his men should protect our horses and
baggage while we went among the Indians. Shaw and I stopped our
horses and held a council, and in an evil hour resolved to go.

For the rest of that day's journey our course and that of the Indians
was the same. In less than an hour we came to where the high barren
prairie terminated, sinking down abruptly in steep descent; and
standing on these heights, we saw below us a great level meadow.
Laramie Creek bounded it on the left, sweeping along in the shadow of
the declivities, and passing with its shallow and rapid current just
below us. We sat on horseback, waiting and looking on, while the
whole savage array went pouring past us, hurrying down the descent
and spreading themselves over the meadow below. In a few moments the
plain was swarming with the moving multitude, some just visible, like
specks in the distance, others still passing on, pressing down, and
fording the stream with bustle and confusion. On the edge of the
heights sat half a dozen of the elder warriors, gravely smoking and
looking down with unmoved faces on the wild and striking spectacle.

Up went the lodges in a circle on the margin of the stream. For the
sake of quiet we pitched our tent among some trees at half a mile's
distance. In the afternoon we were in the village. The day was a
glorious one, and the whole camp seemed lively and animated in
sympathy. Groups of children and young girls were laughing gayly on
the outside of the lodges. The shields, the lances, and the bows
were removed from the tall tripods on which they usually hung before
the dwellings of their owners. The warriors were mounting their
horses, and one by one riding away over the prairie toward the
neighboring hills.

Shaw and I sat on the grass near the lodge of Reynal. An old woman,
with true Indian hospitality, brought a bowl of boiled venison and
placed it before us. We amused ourselves with watching half a dozen
young squaws who were playing together and chasing each other in and
out of one of the lodges. Suddenly the wild yell of the war-whoop
came pealing from the hills. A crowd of horsemen appeared, rushing
down their sides and riding at full speed toward the village, each
warrior's long hair flying behind him in the wind like a ship's
streamer. As they approached, the confused throng assumed a regular
order, and entering two by two, they circled round the area at full
gallop, each warrior singing his war song as he rode. Some of their
dresses were splendid. They wore superb crests of feathers and close
tunics of antelope skins, fringed with the scalp-locks of their
enemies; their shields too were often fluttering with the war eagle's
feathers. All had bows and arrows at their back; some carried long
lances, and a few were armed with guns. The White Shield, their
partisan, rode in gorgeous attire at their head, mounted on a black-
and-white horse. Mahto-Tatonka and his brothers took no part in this
parade, for they were in mourning for their sister, and were all
sitting in their lodges, their bodies bedaubed from head to foot with
white clay, and a lock of hair cut from each of their foreheads.

The warriors circled three times round the village; and as each
distinguished champion passed, the old women would scream out his
name in honor of his bravery, and to incite the emulation of the
younger warriors. Little urchins, not two years old, followed the
warlike pageant with glittering eyes, and looked with eager wonder
and admiration at those whose honors were proclaimed by the public
voice of the village. Thus early is the lesson of war instilled into
the mind of an Indian, and such are the stimulants which incite his
thirst for martial renown.

The procession rode out of the village as it had entered it, and in
half an hour all the warriors had returned again, dropping quietly
in, singly or in parties of two or three.

As the sun rose next morning we looked across the meadow, and could
see the lodges leveled and the Indians gathering together in
preparation to leave the camp. Their course lay to the westward. We
turned toward the north with our men, the four trappers following us,
with the Indian family of Moran. We traveled until night. I
suffered not a little from pain and weakness. We encamped among some
trees by the side of a little brook, and here during the whole of the
next day we lay waiting for Bisonette, but no Bisonette appeared.
Here also two of our trapper friends left us, and set out for the
Rocky Mountains. On the second morning, despairing of Bisonette's
arrival we resumed our journey, traversing a forlorn and dreary
monotony of sun-scorched plains, where no living thing appeared save
here and there an antelope flying before us like the wind. When noon
came we saw an unwonted and most welcome sight; a rich and luxuriant
growth of trees, marking the course of a little stream called
Horseshoe Creek. We turned gladly toward it. There were lofty and
spreading trees, standing widely asunder, and supporting a thick
canopy of leaves, above a surface of rich, tall grass. The stream
ran swiftly, as clear as crystal, through the bosom of the wood,
sparkling over its bed of white sand and darkening again as it
entered a deep cavern of leaves and boughs. I was thoroughly
exhausted, and flung myself on the ground, scarcely able to move.
All that afternoon I lay in the shade by the side of the stream, and
those bright woods and sparkling waters are associated in my mind
with recollections of lassitude and utter prostration. When night
came I sat down by the fire, longing, with an intensity of which at
this moment I can hardly conceive, for some powerful stimulant.

In the morning as glorious a sun rose upon us as ever animated that
desolate wilderness. We advanced and soon were surrounded by tall
bare hills, overspread from top to bottom with prickly-pears and
other cacti, that seemed like clinging reptiles. A plain, flat and
hard, and with scarcely the vestige of grass, lay before us, and a
line of tall misshapen trees bounded the onward view. There was no
sight or sound of man or beast, or any living thing, although behind
those trees was the long-looked-for place of rendezvous, where we
fondly hoped to have found the Indians congregated by thousands. We
looked and listened anxiously. We pushed forward with our best
speed, and forced our horses through the trees. There were copses of
some extent beyond, with a scanty stream creeping through their
midst; and as we pressed through the yielding branches, deer sprang
up to the right and left. At length we caught a glimpse of the
prairie beyond. Soon we emerged upon it, and saw, not a plain
covered with encampments and swarming with life, but a vast unbroken
desert stretching away before us league upon league, without a bush
or a tree or anything that had life. We drew rein and gave to the
winds our sentiments concerning the whole aboriginal race of America.
Our journey was in vain and much worse than in vain. For myself, I
was vexed and disappointed beyond measure; as I well knew that a
slight aggravation of my disorder would render this false step
irrevocable, and make it quite impossible to accomplish effectively
the design which had led me an arduous journey of between three and
four thousand miles. To fortify myself as well as I could against
such a contingency, I resolved that I would not under any
circumstances attempt to leave the country until my object was
completely gained.

And where were the Indians? They were assembled in great numbers at
a spot about twenty miles distant, and there at that very moment they
were engaged in their warlike ceremonies. The scarcity of buffalo in
the vicinity of La Bonte's Camp, which would render their supply of
provisions scanty and precarious, had probably prevented them from
assembling there; but of all this we knew nothing until some weeks
after.

Shaw lashed his horse and galloped forward, I, though much more vexed
than he, was not strong enough to adopt this convenient vent to my
feelings; so I followed at a quiet pace, but in no quiet mood. We
rode up to a solitary old tree, which seemed the only place fit for
encampment. Half its branches were dead, and the rest were so
scantily furnished with leaves that they cast but a meager and
wretched shade, and the old twisted trunk alone furnished sufficient
protection from the sun. We threw down our saddles in the strip of
shadow that it cast, and sat down upon them. In silent indignation
we remained smoking for an hour or more, shifting our saddles with
the shifting shadow, for the sun was intolerably hot.

CHAPTER XIII

HUNTING INDIANS

At last we had reached La Bonte's Camp, toward which our eyes had
turned so long. Of all weary hours, those that passed between noon
and sunset of the day when we arrived there may bear away the palm of
exquisite discomfort. I lay under the tree reflecting on what course
to pursue, watching the shadows which seemed never to move, and the
sun which remained fixed in the sky, and hoping every moment to see
the men and horses of Bisonette emerging from the woods. Shaw and
Henry had ridden out on a scouting expedition, and did not return
until the sun was setting. There was nothing very cheering in their
faces nor in the news they brought.

"We have been ten miles from here," said Shaw. "We climbed the
highest butte we could find, and could not see a buffalo or Indian;
nothing but prairie for twenty miles around us."

Henry's horse was quite disabled by clambering up and down the sides
of ravines, and Shaw's was severely fatigued.

After supper that evening, as we sat around the fire, I proposed to
Shaw to wait one day longer in hopes of Bisonette's arrival, and if
he should not come to send Delorier with the cart and baggage back to
Fort Laramie, while we ourselves followed The Whirlwind's village and
attempted to overtake it as it passed the mountains. Shaw, not
having the same motive for hunting Indians that I had, was averse to
the plan; I therefore resolved to go alone. This design I adopted
very unwillingly, for I knew that in the present state of my health
the attempt would be extremely unpleasant, and, as I considered,
hazardous. I hoped that Bisonette would appear in the course of the
following day, and bring us some information by which to direct our
course, and enable me to accomplish my purpose by means less
objectionable.

The rifle of Henry Chatillon was necessary for the subsistence of the
party in my absence; so I called Raymond, and ordered him to prepare
to set out with me. Raymond rolled his eyes vacantly about, but at
length, having succeeded in grappling with the idea, he withdrew to
his bed under the cart. He was a heavy-molded fellow, with a broad
face exactly like an owl's, expressing the most impenetrable
stupidity and entire self-confidence. As for his good qualities, he
had a sort of stubborn fidelity, an insensibility to danger, and a
kind of instinct or sagacity, which sometimes led him right, where
better heads than his were at a loss. Besides this, he knew very
well how to handle a rifle and picket a horse.

Through the following day the sun glared down upon us with a
pitiless, penetrating heat. The distant blue prairie seemed
quivering under it. The lodge of our Indian associates was baking in
the rays, and our rifles, as they leaned against the tree, were too
hot for the touch. There was a dead silence through our camp and all
around it, unbroken except by the hum of gnats and mosquitoes. The
men, resting their foreheads on their arms, were sleeping under the
cart. The Indians kept close within their lodge except the newly
married pair, who were seated together under an awning of buffalo
robes, and the old conjurer, who, with his hard, emaciated face and
gaunt ribs, was perched aloft like a turkey-buzzard among the dead
branches of an old tree, constantly on the lookout for enemies. He
would have made a capital shot. A rifle bullet, skillfully planted,
would have brought him tumbling to the ground. Surely, I thought,
there could be no more harm in shooting such a hideous old villain,
to see how ugly he would look when he was dead, than in shooting the
detestable vulture which he resembled. We dined, and then Shaw
saddled his horse.

"I will ride back," said he, "to Horseshoe Creek, and see if
Bisonette is there."

"I would go with you," I answered, "but I must reserve all the
strength I have."

The afternoon dragged away at last. I occupied myself in cleaning my
rifle and pistols, and making other preparations for the journey.
After supper, Henry Chatillon and I lay by the fire, discussing the
properties of that admirable weapon, the rifle, in the use of which
he could fairly outrival Leatherstocking himself.

It was late before I wrapped myself in my blanket and lay down for
the night, with my head on my saddle. Shaw had not returned, but
this gave no uneasiness, for we presumed that he had fallen in with
Bisonette, and was spending the night with him. For a day or two
past I had gained in strength and health, but about midnight an
attack of pain awoke me, and for some hours I felt no inclination to
sleep. The moon was quivering on the broad breast of the Platte;
nothing could be heard except those low inexplicable sounds, like
whisperings and footsteps, which no one who has spent the night alone
amid deserts and forests will be at a loss to understand. As I was
falling asleep, a familiar voice, shouting from the distance, awoke
me again. A rapid step approached the camp, and Shaw on foot, with
his gun in his hand, hastily entered.

"Where's your horse?" said I, raising myself on my elbow.

"Lost!" said Shaw. "Where's Delorier?"

"There," I replied, pointing to a confused mass of blankets and
buffalo robes.

Shaw touched them with the butt of his gun, and up sprang our
faithful Canadian.

"Come, Delorier; stir up the fire, and get me something to eat."

"Where's Bisonette?" asked I.

"The Lord knows; there's nobody at Horseshoe Creek."

Shaw had gone back to the spot where we had encamped two days before,
and finding nothing there but the ashes of our fires, he had tied his
horse to the tree while he bathed in the stream. Something startled
his horse, who broke loose, and for two hours Shaw tried in vain to
catch him. Sunset approached, and it was twelve miles to camp. So
he abandoned the attempt, and set out on foot to join us. The
greater part of his perilous and solitary work was performed in
darkness. His moccasins were worn to tatters and his feet severely
lacerated. He sat down to eat, however, with the usual equanimity of
his temper not at all disturbed by his misfortune, and my last
recollection before falling asleep was of Shaw, seated cross-legged
before the fire, smoking his pipe. The horse, I may as well mention
here, was found the next morning by Henry Chatillon.

When I awoke again there was a fresh damp smell in the air, a gray
twilight involved the prairie, and above its eastern verge was a
streak of cold red sky. I called to the men, and in a moment a fire
was blazing brightly in the dim morning light, and breakfast was
getting ready. We sat down together on the grass, to the last
civilized meal which Raymond and I were destined to enjoy for some
time.

"Now, bring in the horses."

My little mare Pauline was soon standing by the fire. She was a
fleet, hardy, and gentle animal, christened after Paul Dorion, from
whom I had procured her in exchange for Pontiac. She did not look as
if equipped for a morning pleasure ride. In front of the black,
high-bowed mountain saddle, holsters, with heavy pistols, were
fastened. A pair of saddle bags, a blanket tightly rolled, a small
parcel of Indian presents tied up in a buffalo skin, a leather bag of
flour, and a smaller one of tea were all secured behind, and a long
trail-rope was wound round her neck. Raymond had a strong black
mule, equipped in a similar manner. We crammed our powder-horns to
the throat, and mounted.

"I will meet you at Fort Laramie on the 1st of August," said I to
Shaw.

"That is," replied he, "if we don't meet before that. I think I
shall follow after you in a day or two."

This in fact he attempted, and he would have succeeded if he had not
encountered obstacles against which his resolute spirit was of no
avail. Two days after I left him he sent Delorier to the fort with
the cart and baggage, and set out for the mountains with Henry
Chatillon; but a tremendons thunderstorm had deluged the prairie, and
nearly obliterated not only our trail but that of the Indians
themselves. They followed along the base of the mountains, at a loss
in which direction to go. They encamped there, and in the morning
Shaw found himself poisoned by ivy in such a manner that it was
impossible for him to travel. So they turned back reluctantly toward
Fort Laramie. Shaw's limbs were swollen to double their usual size,
and he rode in great pain. They encamped again within twenty miles
of the fort, and reached it early on the following morning. Shaw lay
serionsly ill for a week, and remained at the fort till I rejoined
him some time after.

To return to my own story. We shook hands with our friends, rode out
upon the prairie, and clambering the sandy hollows that were
channeled in the sides of the hills gained the high plains above. If
a curse had been pronounced upon the land it could not have worn an
aspect of more dreary and forlorn barrenness. There were abrupt
broken hills, deep hollows, and wide plains; but all alike glared
with an insupportable whiteness under the burning sun. The country,
as if parched by the heat, had cracked into innumerable fissures and
ravines, that not a little impeded our progress. Their steep sides
were white and raw, and along the bottom we several times discovered
the broad tracks of the terrific grizzly bear, nowhere more abundant
than in this region. The ridges of the hills were hard as rock, and
strewn with pebbles of flint and coarse red jasper; looking from
them, there was nothing to relieve the desert uniformity of the
prospect, save here and there a pine-tree clinging at the edge of a
ravine, and stretching out its rough, shaggy arms. Under the
scorching heat these melancholy trees diffused their peculiar
resinous odor through the sultry air. There was something in it, as
I approached them, that recalled old associations; the pine-clad
mountains of New England, traversed in days of health and buoyancy,
rose like a reality before my fancy. In passing that arid waste I
was goaded with a morbid thirst produced by my disorder, and I
thought with a longing desire on the crystal treasure poured in such
wasteful profusion from our thousand hills. Shutting my eyes, I more
than half believed that I heard the deep plunging and gurgling of
waters in the bowels of the shaded rocks. I could see their dark ice
glittering far down amid the crevices, and the cold drops trickling
from the long green mosses.

When noon came, we found a little stream, with a few trees and
bushes; and here we rested for an hour. Then we traveled on, guided
by the sun, until, just before sunset, we reached another stream,
called Bitter Cotton-wood Creek. A thick growth of bushes and old
storm-beaten trees grew at intervals along its bank. Near the foot
of one of the trees we flung down our saddles, and hobbling our
horses turned them loose to feed. The little stream was clear and
swift, and ran musically on its white sands. Small water birds were
splashing in the shallows, and filling the air with their cries and
flutterings. The sun was just sinking among gold and crimson clouds
behind Mount Laramie. I well remember how I lay upon a log by the
margin of the water, and watched the restless motions of the little
fish in a deep still nook below. Strange to say, I seemed to have
gained strength since the morning, and almost felt a sense of
returning health.

We built our fire. Night came, and the wolves began to howl. One
deep voice commenced, and it was answered in awful responses from the
hills, the plains, and the woods along the stream above and below us.
Such sounds need not and do not disturb one's sleep upon the prairie.
We picketed the mare and the mule close at our feet, and did not wake
until daylight. Then we turned them loose, still hobbled, to feed
for an hour before starting. We were getting ready our morning's
meal, when Raymond saw an antelope at half a mile's distance, and
said he would go and shoot it.

"Your business," said. I, "is to look after the animals. I am too
weak to do much, if anything happens to them, and you must keep
within sight of the camp."

Raymond promised, and set out with his rifle in his hand. The
animals had passed across the stream, and were feeding among the long
grass on the other side, much tormented by the attacks of the
numerous large green-headed flies. As I watched them, I saw them go
down into a hollow, and as several minutes elapsed without their
reappearing, I waded through the stream to look after them. To my
vexation and alarm I discovered them at a great distance, galloping
away at full speed, Pauline in advance, with her hobbles broken, and
the mule, still fettered, following with awkward leaps. I fired my
rifle and shouted to recall Raymond. In a moment he came running
through the stream, with a red handkerchief bound round his head. I
pointed to the fugitives, and ordered him to pursue them. Muttering
a "Sacre!" between his teeth, he set out at full speed, still
swinging his rifle in his hand. I walked up to the top of a hill,
and looking away over the prairie, could just distinguish the
runaways, still at full gallop. Returning to the fire, I sat down at
the foot of a tree. Wearily and anxiously hour after hour passed
away. The old loose bark dangling from the trunk behind me flapped
to and fro in the wind, and the mosquitoes kept up their incessant
drowsy humming; but other than this, there was no sight nor sound of
life throughout the burning landscape. The sun rose higher and
higher, until the shadows fell almost perpendicularly, and I knew
that it must be noon. It seemed scarcely possible that the animals
could be recovered. If they were not, my situation was one of
serious difficulty. Shaw, when I left him had decided to move that
morning, but whither he had not determined. To look for him would be
a vain attempt. Fort Laramie was forty miles distant, and I could
not walk a mile without great effort. Not then having learned the
sound philosophy of yielding to disproportionate obstacles, I
resolved to continue in any event the pursuit of the Indians. Only
one plan occurred to me; this was to send Raymond to the fort with an
order for more horses, while I remained on the spot, awaiting his
return, which might take place within three days. But the adoption
of this resolution did not wholly allay my anxiety, for it involved
both uncertainty and danger. To remain stationary and alone for
three days, in a country full of dangerous Indians, was not the most
flattering of prospects; and protracted as my Indian hunt must be by
such delay, it was not easy to foretell its ultimate result.
Revolving these matters, I grew hungry; and as our stock of
provisions, except four or five pounds of flour, was by this time
exhausted, I left the camp to see what game I could find. Nothing
could be seen except four or five large curlew, which, with their
loud screaming, were wheeling over my head, and now and then
alighting upon the prairie. I shot two of them, and was about
returning, when a startling sight caught my eye. A small, dark
object, like a human head, suddenly appeared, and vanished among the
thick hushes along the stream below. In that country every stranger
is a suspected enemy. Instinctively I threw forward the muzzle of my
rifle. In a moment the bushes were violently shaken, two heads, but
not human heads, protruded, and to my great joy I recognized the
downcast, disconsolate countenance of the black mule and the yellow
visage of Pauline. Raymond came upon the mule, pale and haggard,
complaining of a fiery pain in his chest. I took charge of the
animals while he kneeled down by the side of the stream to drink. He
had kept the runaways in sight as far as the Side Fork of Laramie
Creek, a distance of more than ten miles; and here with great
difficulty he had succeeded in catching them. I saw that he was
unarmed, and asked him what he had done with his rifle. It had
encumbered him in his pursuit, and he had dropped it on the prairie,
thinking that he could find it on his return; but in this he had
failed. The loss might prove a very formidable one. I was too much
rejoiced however at the recovery of the animals to think much about
it; and having made some tea for Raymond in a tin vessel which we had
brought with us, I told him that I would give him two hours for
resting before we set out again. He had eaten nothing that day; but
having no appetite, he lay down immediately to sleep. I picketed the
animals among the richest grass that I could find, and made fires of
green wood to protect them from the flies; then sitting down again by
the tree, I watched the slow movements of the sun, begrudging every
moment that passed.

The time I had mentioned expired, and I awoke Raymond. We saddled
and set out again, but first we went in search of the lost rifle, and
in the course of an hour Raymond was fortunate enough to find it.
Then we turned westward, and moved over the hills and hollows at a
slow pace toward the Black Hills. The heat no longer tormented us,
for a cloud was before the sun. Yet that day shall never be marked
with white in my calendar. The air began to grow fresh and cool, the
distant mountains frowned more gloomily, there was a low muttering of
thunder, and dense black masses of cloud rose heavily behind the
broken peaks. At first they were gayly fringed with silver by the
afternoon sun, but soon the thick blackness overspread the whole sky,
and the desert around us was wrapped in deep gloom. I scarcely
heeded it at the time, but now I cannot but feel that there was an
awful sublimity in the hoarse murmuring of the thunder, in the somber
shadows that involved the mountains and the plain. The storm broke.
It came upon us with a zigzag blinding flash, with a terrific crash
of thunder, and with a hurricane that howled over the prairie,
dashing floods of water against us. Raymond looked round, and cursed
the merciless elements. There seemed no shelter near, but we
discerned at length a deep ravine gashed in the level prairie, and
saw half way down its side an old pine tree, whose rough horizontal
boughs formed a sort of penthouse against the tempest. We found a
practicable passage, and hastily descending, fastened our animals to
some large loose stones at the bottom; then climbing up, we drew our
blankets over our heads, and seated ourselves close beneath the old
tree. Perhaps I was no competent judge of time, but it seemed to me
that we were sitting there a full hour, while around us poured a
deluge of rain, through which the rocks on the opposite side of the
gulf were barely visible. The first burst of the tempest soon
subsided, but the rain poured steadily. At length Raymond grew
impatient, and scrambling out of the ravine, he gained the level
prairie above.

"What does the weather look like?" asked I, from my seat under the
tree.

"It looks bad," he answered; "dark all around," and again he
descended and sat down by my side. Some ten minutes elapsed.

"Go up again," said I, "and take another look;" and he clambered up
the precipice. "Well, how is it?"

"Just the same, only I see one little bright spot over the top of the
mountain.

The rain by this time had begun to abate; and going down to the
bottom of the ravine, we loosened the animals, who were standing up
to their knees in water. Leading them up the rocky throat of the
ravine, we reached the plain above. "Am I," I thought to myself,
"the same man who a few months since, was seated, a quiet student of
BELLES-LETTRES, in a cushioned arm-chair by a sea-coal fire?"

All around us was obscurity; but the bright spot above the
mountaintops grew wider and ruddier, until at length the clouds drew
apart, and a flood of sunbeams poured down from heaven, streaming
along the precipices, and involving them in a thin blue haze, as soft
and lovely as that which wraps the Apennines on an evening in spring.
Rapidly the clouds were broken and scattered, like routed legions of
evil spirits. The plain lay basking in sunbeams around us; a rainbow
arched the desert from north to south, and far in front a line of
woods seemed inviting us to refreshment and repose. When we reached
them, they were glistening with prismatic dewdrops, and enlivened by
the song and flutterings of a hundred birds. Strange winged insects,
benumbed by the rain, were clinging to the leaves and the bark of the
trees.

Raymond kindled a fire with great difficulty. The animals turned
eagerly to feed on the soft rich grass, while I, wrapping myself in
my blanket, lay down and gazed on the evening landscape. The
mountains, whose stern features had lowered upon us with so gloomy
and awful a frown, now seemed lighted up with a serene, benignant
smile, and the green waving undulations of the plain were gladdened
with the rich sunshine. Wet, ill, and wearied as I was, my spirit
grew lighter at the view, and I drew from it an augury of good for my
future prospects.

When morning came, Raymond awoke, coughing violently, though I had
apparently received no injury. We mounted, crossed the little
stream, pushed through the trees, and began our journey over the
plain beyond. And now, as we rode slowly along, we looked anxiously
on every hand for traces of the Indians, not doubting that the
village had passed somewhere in that vicinity; but the scanty
shriveled grass was not more than three or four inches high, and the
ground was of such unyielding hardness that a host might have marched
over it and left scarcely a trace of its passage. Up hill and down
hill, and clambering through ravines, we continued our journey. As
we were skirting the foot of a hill I saw Raymond, who was some rods
in advance, suddenly jerking the reins of his mule. Sliding from his
seat, and running in a crouching posture up a hollow, he disappeared;
and then in an instant I heard the sharp quick crack of his rifle. A
wounded antelope came running on three legs over the hill. I lashed
Pauline and made after him. My fleet little mare soon brought me by
his side, and after leaping and bounding for a few moments in vain,
he stood still, as if despairing of escape. His glistening eyes
turned up toward my face with so piteous a look that it was with
feelings of infinite compunction that I shot him through the head
with a pistol. Raymond skinned and cut him up, and we hung the
forequarters to our saddles, much rejoiced that our exhausted stock
of provisions was renewed in such good time.

Gaining the top of a hill, we could see along the cloudy verge of the
prairie before us lines of trees and shadowy groves that marked the
course of Laramie Creek. Some time before noon we reached its banks
and began anxiously to search them for footprints of the Indians. We
followed the stream for several miles, now on the shore and now
wading in the water, scrutinizing every sand-bar and every muddy
bank. So long was the search that we began to fear that we had left
the trail undiscovered behind us. At length I heard Raymond
shouting, and saw him jump from his mule to examine some object under
the shelving bank. I rode up to his side. It was the clear and
palpable impression of an Indian moccasin. Encouraged by this we
continued our search, and at last some appearances on a soft surface
of earth not far from the shore attracted my eye; and going to
examine them I found half a dozen tracks, some made by men and some
by children. Just then Raymond observed across the stream the mouth
of a small branch entering it from the south. He forded the water,
rode in at the opening, and in a moment I heard him shouting again,
so I passed over and joined him. The little branch had a broad sandy
bed, along which the water trickled in a scanty stream; and on either
bank the bushes were so close that the view was completely
intercepted. I found Raymond stooping over the footprints of three
or four horses. Proceeding we found those of a man, then those of a
child, then those of more horses; and at last the bushes on each bank
were beaten down and broken, and the sand plowed up with a multitude
of footsteps, and scored across with the furrows made by the lodge-
poles that had been dragged through. It was now certain that we had
found the trail. I pushed through the bushes, and at a little
distance on the prairie beyond found the ashes of a hundred and fifty
lodge fires, with bones and pieces of buffalo robes scattered around
them, and in some instances the pickets to which horses had been
secured still standing in the ground. Elated by our success we
selected a convenient tree, and turning the animals loose, prepared
to make a meal from the fat haunch of our victim.

Hardship and exposure had thriven with me wonderfully. I had gained
both health and strength since leaving La Bonte's Camp. Raymond and
I made a hearty meal together in high spirits, for we rashly presumed
that having found one end of the trail we should have little
difficulty in reaching the other. But when the animals were led in
we found that our old ill luck had not ceased to follow us close. As
I was saddling Pauline I saw that her eye was as dull as lead, and
the hue of her yellow coat visibly darkened. I placed my foot in the
stirrup to mount, when instantly she staggered and fell flat on her
side. Gaining her feet with an effort she stood by the fire with a
drooping head. Whether she had been bitten by a snake or poisoned by
some noxious plant or attacked by a sudden disorder, it was hard to
say; but at all events her sickness was sufficiently ill-timed and
unfortunate. I succeeded in a second attempt to mount her, and with
a slow pace we moved forward on the trail of the Indians. It led us
up a hill and over a dreary plain; and here, to our great
mortification, the traces almost disappeared, for the ground was hard
as adamant; and if its flinty surface had ever retained the print of
a hoof, the marks had been washed away by the deluge of yesterday.
An Indian village, in its disorderly march, is scattered over the
prairie, often to the width of full half a mile; so that its trail is
nowhere clearly marked, and the task of following it is made doubly
wearisome and difficult. By good fortune plenty of large ant-hills,
a yard or more in diameter, were scattered over the plain, and these
were frequently broken by the footprints of men and horses, and
marked by traces of the lodge-poles. The succulent leaves of the
prickly-pear, also bruised from the same causes, helped a little to
guide us; so inch by inch we moved along. Often we lost the trail
altogether, and then would recover it again, but late in the
afternoon we found ourselves totally at fault. We stood alone
without clew to guide us. The broken plain expanded for league after
league around us, and in front the long dark ridge of mountains was
stretching from north to south. Mount Laramie, a little on our
right, towered high above the rest and from a dark valley just beyond
one of its lower declivities, we discerned volumes of white smoke
slowly rolling up into the clear air.

"I think," said Raymond, "some Indians must be there. Perhaps we had
better go."  But this plan was not rashly to be adopted, and we
determined still to continue our search after the lost trail. Our
good stars prompted us to this decision, for we afterward had reason
to believe, from information given us by the Indians, that the smoke
was raised as a decoy by a Crow war party.

Evening was coming on, and there was no wood or water nearer than the
foot of the mountains. So thither we turned, directing our course
toward the point where Laramie Creek issues forth upon the prairie.
When we reached it the bare tops of the mountains were still
brightened with sunshine. The little river was breaking with a
vehement and angry current from its dark prison. There was something
in the near vicinity of the mountains, in the loud surging of the
rapids, wonderfully cheering and exhilarating; for although once as
familiar as home itself, they had been for months strangers to my
experience. There was a rich grass-plot by the river's bank,
surrounded by low ridges, which would effectually screen ourselves
and our fire from the sight of wandering Indians. Here among the
grass I observed numerous circles of large stones, which, as Raymond
said, were traces of a Dakota winter encampment. We lay down and did
not awake till the sun was up. A large rock projected from the
shore, and behind it the deep water was slowly eddying round and
round. The temptation was irresistible. I threw off my clothes,
leaped in, suffered myself to be borne once round with the current,
and then, seizing the strong root of a water plant, drew myself to
the shore. The effect was so invigorating and refreshing that I
mistook it for returning health. "Pauline," thought I, as I led the
little mare up to be saddled, "only thrive as I do, and you and I
will have sport yet among the buffalo beyond these mountains."  But
scarcely were we mounted and on our way before the momentary glow
passed. Again I hung as usual in my seat, scarcely able to hold
myself erect.

"Look yonder," said Raymond; "you see that big hollow there; the
Indians must have gone that way, if they went anywhere about here."

We reached the gap, which was like a deep notch cut into the mountain
ridge, and here we soon discerned an ant-hill furrowed with the mark
of a lodge-pole. This was quite enough; there could be no doubt now.
As we rode on, the opening growing narrower, the Indians had been
compelled to march in closer order, and the traces became numerous
and distinct. The gap terminated in a rocky gateway, leading into a
rough passage upward, between two precipitous mountains. Here grass
and weeds were bruised to fragments by the throng that had passed
through. We moved slowly over the rocks, up the passage; and in this
toilsome manner we advanced for an hour or two, bare precipices,
hundreds of feet high, shooting up on either hand. Raymond, with his
hardy mule, was a few rods before me, when we came to the foot of an
ascent steeper than the rest, and which I trusted might prove the
highest point of the defile. Pauline strained upward for a few
yards, moaning and stumbling, and then came to a dead stop, unable to
proceed further. I dismounted, and attempted to lead her; but my own
exhausted strength soon gave out; so I loosened the trail-rope from
her neck, and tying it round my arm, crawled up on my hands and
knees. I gained the top, totally exhausted, the sweat drops
trickling from my forehead. Pauline stood like a statue by my side,
her shadow falling upon the scorching rock; and in this shade, for
there was no other, I lay for some time, scarcely able to move a
limb. All around the black crags, sharp as needles at the top, stood
glowing in the sun, without a tree, or a bush, or a blade of grass,
to cover their precipitous sides. The whole scene seemed parched
with a pitiless, insufferable heat.

After a while I could mount again, and we moved on, descending the
rocky defile on its western side. Thinking of that morning's
journey, it has sometimes seemed to me that there was something
ridiculous in my position; a man, armed to the teeth, but wholly
unable to fight, and equally so to run away, traversing a dangerous
wilderness, on a sick horse. But these thoughts were retrospective,
for at the time I was in too grave a mood to entertain a very lively
sense of the ludicrous.

Raymond's saddle-girth slipped; and while I proceeded he was stopping
behind to repair the mischief. I came to the top of a little
declivity, where a most welcome sight greeted my eye; a nook of fresh
green grass nestled among the cliffs, sunny clumps of bushes on one
side, and shaggy old pine trees leaning forward from the rocks on the
other. A shrill, familiar voice saluted me, and recalled me to days
of boyhood; that of the insect called the "locust" by New England
schoolboys, which was fast clinging among the heated boughs of the
old pine trees. Then, too, as I passed the bushes, the low sound of
falling water reached my ear. Pauline turned of her own accord, and
pushing through the boughs we found a black rock, over-arched by the
cool green canopy. An icy stream was pouring from its side into a
wide basin of white sand, from whence it had no visible outlet, but
filtered through into the soil below. While I filled a tin cup at
the spring, Pauline was eagerly plunging her head deep in the pool.
Other visitors had been there before us. All around in the soft soil
were the footprints of elk, deer, and the Rocky Mountain sheep; and
the grizzly bear too had left the recent prints of his broad foot,
with its frightful array of claws. Among these mountains was his
home.

Soon after leaving the spring we found a little grassy plain,
encircled by the mountains, and marked, to our great joy, with all
the traces of an Indian camp. Raymond's practiced eye detected
certain signs by which he recognized the spot where Reynal's lodge
had been pitched and his horses picketed. I approached, and stood
looking at the place. Reynal and I had, I believe, hardly a feeling
in common. I disliked the fellow, and it perplexed me a good deal to
understand why I should look with so much interest on the ashes of
his fire, when between him and me there seemed no other bond of
sympathy than the slender and precarious one of a kindred race.

In half an hour from this we were clear of the mountains. There was
a plain before us, totally barren and thickly peopled in many parts
with the little prairie dogs, who sat at the mouths of their burrows
and yelped at us as we passed. The plain, as we thought, was about
six miles wide; but it cost us two hours to cross it. Then another
mountain range rose before us, grander and more wild than the last
had been. Far out of the dense shrubbery that clothed the steeps for
a thousand feet shot up black crags, all leaning one way, and
shattered by storms and thunder into grim and threatening shapes. As
we entered a narrow passage on the trail of the Indians, they
impended frightfully on one side, above our heads.

Our course was through dense woods, in the shade and twinkling
sunlight of overhanging boughs. I would I could recall to mind all
the startling combinations that presented themselves, as winding from
side to side of the passage, to avoid its obstructions, we could see,
glancing at intervals through the foliage, the awful forms of the
gigantic cliffs, that seemed at times to hem us in on the right and
on the left, before us and behind! Another scene in a few moments
greeted us; a tract of gray and sunny woods, broken into knolls and
hollows, enlivened by birds and interspersed with flowers. Among the
rest I recognized the mellow whistle of the robin, an old familiar
friend whom I had scarce expected to meet in such a place. Humble-
bees too were buzzing heavily about the flowers; and of these a
species of larkspur caught my eye, more appropriate, it should seem,
to cultivated gardens than to a remote wilderness. Instantly it
recalled a multitude of dormant and delightful recollections.

Leaving behind us this spot and its associations, a sight soon
presented itself, characteristic of that warlike region. In an open
space, fenced in by high rocks, stood two Indian forts, of a square
form, rudely built of sticks and logs. They were somewhat ruinous,
having probably been constructed the year before. Each might have
contained about twenty men. Perhaps in this gloomy spot some party
had been beset by their enemies, and those scowling rocks and blasted
trees might not long since have looked down on a conflict
unchronicled and unknown. Yet if any traces of bloodshed remained
they were completely hidden by the bushes and tall rank weeds.

Gradually the mountains drew apart, and the passage expanded into a
plain, where again we found traces of an Indian encampment. There
were trees and bushes just before us, and we stopped here for an
hour's rest and refreshment. When we had finished our meal Raymond
struck fire, and lighting his pipe, sat down at the foot of a tree to
smoke. For some time I observed him puffing away with a face of
unusual solemnity. Then slowly taking the pipe from his lips, he
looked up and remarked that we had better not go any farther.

"Why not?" asked I.

He said that the country was becoming very dangerous, that we were
entering the range of the Snakes, Arapahoes and Grosventre Blackfeet,
and that if any of their wandering parties should meet us, it would
cost us our lives; but he added, with a blunt fidelity that nearly
reconciled me to his stupidity, that he would go anywhere I wished.
I told him to bring up the animals, and mounting them we proceeded
again. I confess that, as we moved forward, the prospect seemed but
a dreary and doubtful one. I would have given the world for my
ordinary elasticity of body and mind, and for a horse of such
strength and spirit as the journey required.

Closer and closer the rocks gathered round us, growing taller and
steeper, and pressing more and more upon our path. We entered at
length a defile which I never had seen rivaled. The mountain was
cracked from top to bottom, and we were creeping along the bottom of
the fissure, in dampness and gloom, with the clink of hoofs on the
loose shingly rocks, and the hoarse murmuring of a petulant brook
which kept us company. Sometimes the water, foaming among the
stones, overspread the whole narrow passage; sometimes, withdrawing
to one side, it gave us room to pass dry-shod. Looking up, we could
see a narrow ribbon of bright blue sky between the dark edges of the
opposing cliffs. This did not last long. The passage soon widened,
and sunbeams found their way down, flashing upon the black waters.
The defile would spread out to many rods in width; bushes, trees, and
flowers would spring by the side of the brook; the cliffs would be
feathered with shrubbery, that clung in every crevice, and fringed
with trees, that grew along their sunny edges. Then we would be
moving again in the darkness. The passage seemed about four miles
long, and before we reached the end of it, the unshod hoofs of our
animals were lamentably broken, and their legs cut by the sharp
stones. Issuing from the mountain we found another plain. All
around it stood a circle of lofty precipices, that seemed the
impersonation of silence and solitude. Here again the Indians had
encamped, as well they might, after passing with their women,
children and horses through the gulf behind us. In one day we had
made a journey which had cost them three to accomplish.

The only outlet to this amphitheater lay over a hill some two hundred
feet high, up which we moved with difficulty. Looking from the top,
we saw that at last we were free of the mountains. The prairie
spread before us, but so wild and broken that the view was everywhere
obstructed. Far on our left one tall hill swelled up against the
sky, on the smooth, pale green surface of which four slowly moving
black specks were discernible. They were evidently buffalo, and we
hailed the sight as a good augury; for where the buffalo were, there
too the Indians would probably be found. We hoped on that very night
to reach the village. We were anxious to do so for a double reason,
wishing to bring our wearisome journey to an end, and knowing,
moreover, that though to enter the village in broad daylight would be
a perfectly safe experiment, yet to encamp in its vicinity would be
dangerous. But as we rode on, the sun was sinking, and soon was
within half an hour of the horizon. We ascended a hill and looked
round us for a spot for our encampment. The prairie was like a
turbulent ocean, suddenly congealed when its waves were at the
highest, and it lay half in light and half in shadow, as the rich
sunshine, yellow as gold, was pouring over it. The rough bushes of
the wild sage were growing everywhere, its dull pale green
overspreading hill and hollow. Yet a little way before us, a bright
verdant line of grass was winding along the plain, and here and there
throughout its course water was glistening darkly. We went down to
it, kindled a fire, and turned our horses loose to feed. It was a
little trickling brook, that for some yards on either bank turned the
barren prairie into fertility, and here and there it spread into deep
pools, where the beaver had dammed it up.

We placed our last remaining piece of the antelope before a scanty
fire, mournfully reflecting on our exhausted stock of provisions.
Just then an enormous gray hare, peculiar to these prairies, came
jumping along, and seated himself within fifty yards to look at us.
I thoughtlessly raised my rifle to shoot him, but Raymond called out
to me not to fire for fear the report should reach the ears of the
Indians. That night for the first time we considered that the danger
to which we were exposed was of a somewhat serious character; and to
those who are unacquainted with Indians, it may seem strange that our
chief apprehensions arose from the supposed proximity of the people
whom we intended to visit. Had any straggling party of these
faithful friends caught sight of us from the hill-top, they would
probably have returned in the night to plunder us of our horses and
perhaps of our scalps. But we were on the prairie, where the GENIUS
LOCI is at war with all nervous apprehensions; and I presume that
neither Raymond nor I thought twice of the matter that evening.

While he was looking after the animals, I sat by the fire engaged in
the novel task of baking bread. The utensils were of the most simple
and primitive kind, consisting of two sticks inclining over the bed
of coals, one end thrust into the ground while the dough was twisted
in a spiral form round the other. Under such circumstances all the
epicurean in a man's nature is apt to awaken within him. I revisited
in fancy the far distant abodes of good fare, not indeed Frascati's,
or the Trois Freres Provencaux, for that were too extreme a flight;
but no other than the homely table of my old friend and host, Tom
Crawford, of the White Mountains. By a singular revulsion, Tom
himself, whom I well remember to have looked upon as the
impersonation of all that is wild and backwoodsman-like, now appeared
before me as the ministering angel of comfort and good living. Being
fatigued and drowsy I began to doze, and my thoughts, following the
same train of association, assumed another form. Half-dreaming, I
saw myself surrounded with the mountains of New England, alive with
water-falls, their black crags tinctured with milk-white mists. For
this reverie I paid a speedy penalty; for the bread was black on one
side and soft on the other.

For eight hours Raymond and I, pillowed on our saddles, lay
insensible as logs. Pauline's yellow head was stretched over me when
I awoke. I got up and examined her. Her feet indeed were bruised
and swollen by the accidents of yesterday, but her eye was brighter,
her motions livelier, and her mysterious malady had visibly abated.
We moved on, hoping within an hour to come in sight of the Indian
village; but again disappointment awaited us. The trail disappeared,
melting away upon a hard and stony plain. Raymond and I separating,
rode from side to side, scrutinizing every yard of ground, until at
length I discerned traces of the lodge-poles passing by the side of a
ridge of rocks. We began again to follow them.

"What is that black spot out there on the prairie?"

"It looks like a dead buffalo," answered Raymond.

We rode out to it, and found it to be the huge carcass of a bull
killed by the Indians as they had passed. Tangled hair and scraps of
hide were scattered all around, for the wolves had been making merry
over it, and had hollowed out the entire carcass. It was covered
with myriads of large black crickets, and from its appearance must
certainly have lain there for four or five days. The sight was a
most disheartening one, and I observed to Raymond that the Indians
might still be fifty or sixty miles before us. But he shook his
head, and replied that they dared not go so far for fear of their
enemies, the Snakes.

Soon after this we lost the trail again, and ascended a neighboring
ridge, totally at a loss. Before us lay a plain perfectly flat,
spreading on the right and left, without apparent limit, and bounded
in front by a long broken line of hills, ten or twelve miles distant.
All was open and exposed to view, yet not a buffalo nor an Indian was
visible.

"Do you see that?" said Raymond; "Now we had better turn round."

But as Raymond's bourgeois thought otherwise, we descended the hill
and began to cross the plain. We had come so far that I knew
perfectly well neither Pauline's limbs nor my own could carry me back
to Fort Laramie. I considered that the lines of expediency and
inclination tallied exactly, and that the most prudent course was to
keep forward. The ground immediately around us was thickly strewn
with the skulls and bones of buffalo, for here a year or two before
the Indians had made a "surround"; yet no living game presented
itself. At length, however, an antelope sprang up and gazed at us.
We fired together, and by a singular fatality we both missed,
although the animal stood, a fair mark, within eighty yards. This
ill success might perhaps be charged to our own eagerness, for by
this time we had no provision left except a little flour. We could
discern several small lakes, or rather extensive pools of water,
glistening in the distance. As we approached them, wolves and
antelopes bounded away through the tall grass that grew in their
vicinity, and flocks of large white plover flew screaming over their
surface. Having failed of the antelope, Raymond tried his hand at
the birds with the same ill success. The water also disappointed us.
Its muddy margin was so beaten up by the crowd of buffalo that our
timorous animals were afraid to approach. So we turned away and
moved toward the hills. The rank grass, where it was not trampled
down by the buffalo, fairly swept our horses' necks.

Again we found the same execrable barren prairie offering no clew by
which to guide our way. As we drew near the hills an opening
appeared, through which the Indians must have gone if they had passed
that way at all. Slowly we began to ascend it. I felt the most
dreary forebodings of ill success, when on looking round I could
discover neither dent of hoof, nor footprint, nor trace of lodge-
pole, though the passage was encumbered by the ghastly skulls of
buffalo. We heard thunder muttering; a storm was coming on.

As we gained the top of the gap, the prospect beyond began to
disclose itself. First, we saw a long dark line of ragged clouds
upon the horizon, while above them rose the peak of the Medicine-Bow,
the vanguard of the Rocky Mountains; then little by little the plain
came into view, a vast green uniformity, forlorn and tenantless,
though Laramie Creek glistened in a waving line over its surface,
without a bush or a tree upon its banks. As yet, the round
projecting shoulder of a hill intercepted a part of the view. I rode
in advance, when suddenly I could distinguish a few dark spots on the
prairie, along the bank of the stream.

"Buffalo!" said I. Then a sudden hope flashed upon me, and eagerly
and anxiously I looked again.

"Horses!" exclaimed Raymond, with a tremendous oath, lashing his mule
forward as he spoke. More and more of the plain disclosed itself,
and in rapid succession more and more horses appeared, scattered
along the river bank, or feeding in bands over the prairie. Then,
suddenly, standing in a circle by the stream, swarming with their
savage inhabitants, we saw rising before us the tall lodges of the
Ogallalla. Never did the heart of wanderer more gladden at the sight
of home than did mine at the sight of those wild habitations!

CHAPTER XIV

THE OGALLALLA VILLAGE

Such a narrative as this is hardly the place for portraying the
mental features of the Indians. The same picture, slightly changed
in shade and coloring, would serve with very few exceptions for all
the tribes that lie north of the Mexican territories. But with this
striking similarity in their modes of thought, the tribes of the lake
and ocean shores, of the forests and of the plains, differ greatly in
their manner of life. Having been domesticated for several weeks
among one of the wildest of the wild hordes that roam over the remote
prairies, I had extraordinary opportunities of observing them, and I
flatter myself that a faithful picture of the scenes that passed
daily before my eyes may not be devoid of interest and value. These
men were thorough savages. Neither their manners nor their ideas
were in the slightest degree modified by contact with civilization.
They knew nothing of the power and real character of the white men,
and their children would scream in terror at the sight of me. Their
religion, their superstitions, and their prejudices were the same
that had been handed down to them from immemorial time. They fought
with the same weapons that their fathers fought with and wore the
same rude garments of skins.

Great changes are at hand in that region. With the stream of
emigration to Oregon and California, the buffalo will dwindle away,
and the large wandering communities who depend on them for support
must be broken and scattered. The Indians will soon be corrupted by
the example of the whites, abased by whisky, and overawed by military
posts; so that within a few years the traveler may pass in tolerable
security through their country. Its danger and its charm will have
disappeared together.

As soon as Raymond and I discovered the village from the gap in the
hills, we were seen in our turn; keen eyes were constantly on the
watch. As we rode down upon the plain the side of the village
nearest us was darkened with a crowd of naked figures gathering
around the lodges. Several men came forward to meet us. I could
distinguish among them the green blanket of the Frenchman Reynal.
When we came up the ceremony of shaking hands had to be gone through
with in due form, and then all were eager to know what had become of
the rest of my party. I satisfied them on this point, and we all
moved forward together toward the village.

"You've missed it," said Reynal; "if you'd been here day before
yesterday, you'd have found the whole prairie over yonder black with
buffalo as far as you could see. There were no cows, though; nothing
but bulls. We made a 'surround' every day till yesterday. See the
village there; don't that look like good living?"

In fact I could see, even at that distance, that long cords were
stretched from lodge to lodge, over which the meat, cut by the squaws
into thin sheets, was hanging to dry in the sun. I noticed too that
the village was somewhat smaller than when I had last seen it, and I
asked Reynal the cause. He said that the old Le Borgne had felt too
weak to pass over the mountains, and so had remained behind with all
his relations, including Mahto-Tatonka and his brothers. The
Whirlwind too had been unwilling to come so far, because, as Reynal
said, he was afraid. Only half a dozen lodges had adhered to him,
the main body of the village setting their chief's authority at
naught, and taking the course most agreeable to their inclinations.

"What chiefs are there in the village now?" said I.

"Well," said Reynal, "there's old Red-Water, and the Eagle-Feather,
and the Big Crow, and the Mad Wolf and the Panther, and the White
Shield, and--what's his name?--the half-breed Cheyenne."

By this time we were close to the village, and I observed that while
the greater part of the lodges were very large and neat in their
appearance, there was at one side a cluster of squalid, miserable
huts. I looked toward them, and made some remark about their
wretched appearance. But I was touching upon delicate ground.

"My squaw's relations live in those lodges," said Reynal very warmly,
"and there isn't a better set in the whole village."

"Are there any chiefs among them?" asked I.

"Chiefs?" said Reynal; "yes, plenty!"

"What are their names?" I inquired.

"Their names? Why, there's the Arrow-Head. If he isn't a chief he
ought to be one. And there's the Hail-Storm. He's nothing but a
boy, to be sure; but he's bound to be a chief one of these days!"

Just then we passed between two of the lodges, and entered the great
area of the village. Superb naked figures stood silently gazing on
us.

"Where's the Bad Wound's lodge?" said I to Reynal.

"There, you've missed it again! The Bad Wound is away with The
Whirlwind. If you could have found him here, and gone to live in his
lodge, he would have treated you better than any man in the village.
But there's the Big Crow's lodge yonder, next to old Red-Water's.
He's a good Indian for the whites, and I advise you to go and live
with him."

"Are there many squaws and children in his lodge?" said I.

"No; only one squaw and two or three children. He keeps the rest in
a separate lodge by themselves."

So, still followed by a crowd of Indians, Raymond and I rode up to
the entrance of the Big Crow's lodge. A squaw came out immediately
and took our horses. I put aside the leather nap that covered the
low opening, and stooping, entered the Big Crow's dwelling. There I
could see the chief in the dim light, seated at one side, on a pile
of buffalo robes. He greeted me with a guttural "How, cola!"  I
requested Reynal to tell him that Raymond and I were come to live
with him. The Big Crow gave another low exclamation. If the reader
thinks that we were intruding somewhat cavalierly, I beg him to
observe that every Indian in the village would have deemed himself
honored that white men should give such preference to his
hospitality.

The squaw spread a buffalo robe for us in the guest's place at the
head of the lodge. Our saddles were brought in, and scarcely were we
seated upon them before the place was thronged with Indians, who came
crowding in to see us. The Big Crow produced his pipe and filled it
with the mixture of tobacco and shongsasha, or red willow bark.
Round and round it passed, and a lively conversation went forward.
Meanwhile a squaw placed before the two guests a wooden bowl of
boiled buffalo meat, but unhappily this was not the only banquet
destined to be inflicted on us. Rapidly, one after another, boys and
young squaws thrust their heads in at the opening, to invite us to
various feasts in different parts of the village. For half an hour
or more we were actively engaged in passing from lodge to lodge,
tasting in each of the bowl of meat set before us, and inhaling a
whiff or two from our entertainer's pipe. A thunderstorm that had
been threatening for some time now began in good earnest. We crossed
over to Reynal's lodge, though it hardly deserved this name, for it
consisted only of a few old buffalo robes, supported on poles, and
was quite open on one side. Here we sat down, and the Indians
gathered round us.

"What is it," said I, "that makes the thunder?"

"It's my belief," said Reynal, "that it is a big stone rolling over
the sky."

"Very likely," I replied; "but I want to know what the Indians think
about it."

So he interpreted my question, which seemed to produce some doubt and
debate. There was evidently a difference of opinion. At last old
Mene-Seela, or Red-Water, who sat by himself at one side, looked up
with his withered face, and said he had always known what the thunder
was. It was a great black bird; and once he had seen it, in a dream,
swooping down from the Black Hills, with its loud roaring wings; and
when it flapped them over a lake, they struck lightning from the
water.

"The thunder is bad," said another old man, who sat muffled in his
buffalo robe; "he killed my brother last summer."

Reynal, at my request, asked for an explanation; but the old man
remained doggedly silent, and would not look up. Some time after I
learned how the accident occurred. The man who was killed belonged
to an association which, among other mystic functions, claimed the
exclusive power and privilege of fighting the thunder. Whenever a
storm which they wished to avert was threatening, the thunder-
fighters would take their bows and arrows, their guns, their magic
drum, and a sort of whistle, made out of the wingbone of the war
eagle. Thus equipped, they would run out and fire at the rising
cloud, whooping, yelling, whistling, and beating their drum, to
frighten it down again. One afternoon a heavy black cloud was coming
up, and they repaired to the top of a hill, where they brought all
their magic artillery into play against it. But the undaunted
thunder, refusing to be terrified, kept moving straight onward, and
darted out a bright flash which struck one of the party dead, as he
was in the very act of shaking his long iron-pointed lance against
it. The rest scattered and ran yelling in an ecstasy of
superstitious terror back to their lodges.

The lodge of my host Kongra-Tonga, or the Big Crow, presented a
picturesque spectacle that evening. A score or more of Indians were
seated around in a circle, their dark naked forms just visible by the
dull light of the smoldering fire in the center, the pipe glowing
brightly in the gloom as it passed from hand to hand round the lodge.
Then a squaw would drop a piece of buffalo-fat on the dull embers.
Instantly a bright glancing flame would leap up, darting its clear
light to the very apex of the tall conical structure, where the tops
of the slender poles that supported its covering of leather were
gathered together. It gilded the features of the Indians, as with
animated gestures they sat around it, telling their endless stories
of war and hunting. It displayed rude garments of skins that hung
around the lodge; the bow, quiver, and lance suspended over the
resting-place of the chief, and the rifles and powder-horns of the
two white guests. For a moment all would be bright as day; then the
flames would die away, and fitful flashes from the embers would
illumine the lodge, and then leave it in darkness. Then all the
light would wholly fade, and the lodge and all within it be involved
again in obscurity.

As I left the lodge next morning, I was saluted by howling and
yelling from all around the village, and half its canine population
rushed forth to the attack. Being as cowardly as they were
clamorous, they kept jumping around me at the distance of a few
yards, only one little cur, about ten inches long, having spirit
enough to make a direct assault. He dashed valiantly at the leather
tassel which in the Dakota fashion was trailing behind the heel of my
moccasin, and kept his hold, growling and snarling all the while,
though every step I made almost jerked him over on his back. As I
knew that the eyes of the whole village were on the watch to see if I
showed any sign of apprehension, I walked forward without looking to
the right or left, surrounded wherever I went by this magic circle of
dogs. When I came to Reynal's lodge I sat down by it, on which the
dogs dispersed growling to their respective quarters. Only one large
white one remained, who kept running about before me and showing his
teeth. I called him, but he only growled the more. I looked at him
well. He was fat and sleek; just such a dog as I wanted. "My
friend," thought I, "you shall pay for this! I will have you eaten
this very morning!"

I intended that day to give the Indians a feast, by way of conveying
a favorable impression of my character and dignity; and a white dog
is the dish which the customs of the Dakota prescribe for all
occasions of formality and importance. I consulted Reynal; he soon
discovered that an old woman in the next lodge was owner of the white
dog. I took a gaudy cotton handkerchief, and laying it on the
ground, arranged some vermilion, beads, and other trinkets upon it.
Then the old squaw was summoned. I pointed to the dog and to the
handkerchief. She gave a scream of delight, snatched up the prize,
and vanished with it into her lodge. For a few more trifles I
engaged the services of two other squaws, each of whom took the white
dog by one of his paws, and led him away behind the lodges, while he
kept looking up at them with a face of innocent surprise. Having
killed him they threw him into a fire to singe; then chopped him up
and put him into two large kettles to boil. Meanwhile I told Raymond
to fry in buffalo-fat what little flour we had left, and also to make
a kettle of tea as an additional item of the repast.

The Big Crow's squaw was set briskly at work sweeping out the lodge
for the approaching festivity. I confided to my host himself the
task of inviting the guests, thinking that I might thereby shift from
my own shoulders the odium of fancied neglect and oversight.

When feasting is in question, one hour of the day serves an Indian as
well as another. My entertainment came off about eleven o'clock. At
that hour, Reynal and Raymond walked across the area of the village,
to the admiration of the inhabitants, carrying the two kettles of
dog-meat slung on a pole between them. These they placed in the
center of the lodge, and then went back for the bread and the tea.
Meanwhile I had put on a pair of brilliant moccasins, and substituted
for my old buckskin frock a coat which I had brought with me in view
of such public occasions. I also made careful use of the razor, an
operation which no man will neglect who desires to gain the good
opinion of Indians. Thus attired, I seated myself between Reynal and
Raymond at the head of the lodge. Only a few minutes elapsed before
all the guests had come in and were seated on the ground, wedged
together in a close circle around the lodge. Each brought with him a
wooden bowl to hold his share of the repast. When all were
assembled, two of the officials called "soldiers" by the white men,
came forward with ladles made of the horn of the Rocky Mountain
sheep, and began to distribute the feast, always assigning a double
share to the old men and chiefs. The dog vanished with astonishing
celerity, and each guest turned his dish bottom upward to show that
all was gone. Then the bread was distributed in its turn, and
finally the tea. As the soldiers poured it out into the same wooden
bowls that had served for the substantial part of the meal, I thought
it had a particularly curious and uninviting color.

"Oh!" said Reynal, "there was not tea enough, so I stirred some soot
in the kettle, to make it look strong."

Fortunately an Indian's palate is not very discriminating. The tea
was well sweetened, and that was all they cared for.

Now the former part of the entertainment being concluded, the time
for speech-making was come. The Big Crow produced a flat piece of
wood on which he cut up tobacco and shongsasha, and mixed them in due
proportions. The pipes were filled and passed from hand to hand
around the company. Then I began my speech, each sentence being
interpreted by Reynal as I went on, and echoed by the whole audience
with the usual exclamations of assent and approval. As nearly as I
can recollect, it was as follows:

I had come, I told them, from a country so far distant, that at the
rate they travel, they could not reach it in a year.

"Howo how!"

"There the Meneaska were more numerous than the blades of grass on
the prairie. The squaws were far more beautiful than any they had
ever seen, and all the men were brave warriors."

"How! how! how!"

Here I was assailed by sharp twinges of conscience, for I fancied I
could perceive a fragrance of perfumery in the air, and a vision rose
before me of white kid gloves and silken mustaches with the mild and
gentle countenances of numerous fair-haired young men. But I
recovered myself and began again.

"While I was living in the Meneaska lodges, I had heard of the
Ogallalla, how great and brave a nation they were, how they loved the
whites, and how well they could hunt the buffalo and strike their
enemies. I resolved to come and see if all that I heard was true."

"How! how! how! how!"

"As I had come on horseback through the mountains, I had been able to
bring them only a very few presents."

"How!"

"But I had enough tobacco to give them all a small piece. They might
smoke it, and see how much better it was than the tobacco which they
got from the traders."

"How! how! how!"

"I had plenty of powder, lead, knives, and tobacco at Fort Laramie.
These I was anxious to give them, and if any of them should come to
the fort before I went away, I would make them handsome presents."

"How! howo how! how!"

Raymond then cut up and distributed among them two or three pounds of
tobacco, and old Mene-Seela began to make a reply. It was quite
long, but the following was the pith of it:

"He had always loved the whites. They were the wisest people on
earth. He believed they could do everything, and he was always glad
when any of them came to live in the Ogallalla lodges. It was true I
had not made them many presents, but the reason of it was plain. It
was clear that I liked them, or I never should have come so far to
find their village."

Several other speeches of similar import followed, and then this more
serious matter being disposed of, there was an interval of smoking,
laughing, and conversation; but old Mene-Seela suddenly interrupted
it with a loud voice:

"Now is a good time," he said, "when all the old men and chiefs are
here together, to decide what the people shall do. We came over the
mountain to make our lodges for next year. Our old ones are good for
nothing; they are rotten and worn out. But we have been
disappointed. We have killed buffalo bulls enough, but we have found
no herds of cows, and the skins of bulls are too thick and heavy for
our squaws to make lodges of. There must be plenty of cows about the
Medicine-Bow Mountain. We ought to go there. To be sure it is
farther westward than we have ever been before, and perhaps the
Snakes will attack us, for those hunting-grounds belong to them. But
we must have new lodges at any rate; our old ones will not serve for
another year. We ought not to be afraid of the Snakes. Our warriors
are brave, and they are all ready for war. Besides, we have three
white men with their rifles to help us."

I could not help thinking that the old man relied a little too much
on the aid of allies, one of whom was a coward, another a blockhead,
and the third an invalid. This speech produced a good deal of
debate. As Reynal did not interpret what was said, I could only
judge of the meaning by the features and gestures of the speakers.
At the end of it, however, the greater number seemed to have fallen
in with Mene-Seela's opinion. A short silence followed, and then the
old man struck up a discordant chant, which I was told was a song of
thanks for the entertainment I had given them.

"Now," said he, "let us go and give the white men a chance to
breathe."

So the company all dispersed into the open air, and for some time the
old chief was walking round the village, singing his song in praise
of the feast, after the usual custom of the nation.

At last the day drew to a close, and as the sun went down the horses
came trooping from the surrounding plains to be picketed before the
dwellings of their respective masters. Soon within the great circle
of lodges appeared another concentric circle of restless horses; and
here and there fires were glowing and flickering amid the gloom of
the dusky figures around them. I went over and sat by the lodge of
Reynal. The Eagle-Feather, who was a son of Mene-Seela, and brother
of my host the Big Crow, was seated there already, and I asked him if
the village would move in the morning. He shook his head, and said
that nobody could tell, for since old Mahto-Tatonka had died, the
people had been like children that did not know their own minds.
They were no better than a body without a head. So I, as well as the
Indians themselves, fell asleep that night without knowing whether we
should set out in the morning toward the country of the Snakes.

At daybreak, however, as I was coming up from the river after my
morning's ablutions, I saw that a movement was contemplated. Some of
the lodges were reduced to nothing but bare skeletons of poles; the
leather covering of others was flapping in the wind as the squaws
were pulling it off. One or two chiefs of note had resolved, it
seemed, on moving; and so having set their squaws at work, the
example was tacitly followed by the rest of the village. One by one
the lodges were sinking down in rapid succession, and where the great
circle of the village had been only a moment before, nothing now
remained but a ring of horses and Indians, crowded in confusion
together. The ruins of the lodges were spread over the ground,
together with kettles, stone mallets, great ladles of horn, buffalo
robes, and cases of painted hide, filled with dried meat. Squaws
bustled about in their busy preparations, the old hags screaming to
one another at the stretch of their leathern lungs. The shaggy
horses were patiently standing while the lodge-poles were lashed to
their sides, and the baggage piled upon their backs. The dogs, with
their tongues lolling out, lay lazily panting, and waiting for the
time of departure. Each warrior sat on the ground by the decaying
embers of his fire, unmoved amid all the confusion, while he held in
his hand the long trail-rope of his horse.

As their preparations were completed, each family moved off the
ground. The crowd was rapidly melting away. I could see them
crossing the river, and passing in quick succession along the profile
of the hill on the farther bank. When all were gone, I mounted and
set out after them, followed by Raymond, and as we gained the summit,
the whole village came in view at once, straggling away for a mile or
more over the barren plains before us. Everywhere the iron points of
lances were glittering. The sun never shone upon a more strange
array. Here were the heavy-laden pack horses, some wretched old
women leading them, and two or three children clinging to their
backs. Here were mules or ponies covered from head to tail with
gaudy trappings, and mounted by some gay young squaw, grinning
bashfulness and pleasure as the Meneaska looked at her. Boys with
miniature bows and arrows were wandering over the plains, little
naked children were running along on foot, and numberless dogs were
scampering among the feet of the horses. The young braves, gaudy
with paint and feathers, were riding in groups among the crowd, and
often galloping, two or three at once along the line, to try the
speed of their horses. Here and there you might see a rank of sturdy
pedestrians stalking along in their white buffalo robes. These were
the dignitaries of the village, the old men and warriors, to whose
age and experience that wandering democracy yielded a silent
deference. With the rough prairie and the broken hills for its
background, the restless scene was striking and picturesque beyond
description. Days and weeks made me familiar with it, but never
impaired its effect upon my fancy.

As we moved on the broken column grew yet more scattered and
disorderly, until, as we approached the foot of a hill, I saw the old
men before mentioned seating themselves in a line upon the ground, in
advance of the whole. They lighted a pipe and sat smoking, laughing,
and telling stories, while the people, stopping as they successively
came up, were soon gathered in a crowd behind them. Then the old men
rose, drew their buffalo robes over their shoulders, and strode on as
before. Gaining the top of the hill, we found a very steep declivity
before us. There was not a minute's pause. The whole descended in a
mass, amid dust and confusion. The horses braced their feet as they
slid down, women and children were screaming, dogs yelping as they
were trodden upon, while stones and earth went rolling to the bottom.
In a few moments I could see the village from the summit, spreading
again far and wide over the plain below.

At our encampment that afternoon I was attacked anew by my old
disorder. In half an hour the strength that I had been gaining for a
week past had vanished again, and I became like a man in a dream.
But at sunset I lay down in the Big Crow's lodge and slept, totally
unconscious till the morning. The first thing that awakened me was a
hoarse flapping over my head, and a sudden light that poured in upon
me. The camp was breaking up, and the squaws were moving the
covering from the lodge. I arose and shook off my blanket with the
feeling of perfect health; but scarcely had I gained my feet when a
sense of my helpless condition was once more forced upon me, and I
found myself scarcely able to stand. Raymond had brought up Pauline
and the mule, and I stooped to raise my saddle from the ground. My
strength was quite inadequate to the task. "You must saddle her,"
said I to Raymond, as I sat down again on a pile of buffalo robes:

     "Et hoec etiam fortasse meminisse juvabit."

I thought, while with a painful effort I raised myself into the
saddle. Half an hour after, even the expectation that Virgil's line
expressed seemed destined to disappointment. As we were passing over
a great plain, surrounded by long broken ridges, I rode slowly in
advance of the Indians, with thoughts that wandered far from the time
and from the place. Suddenly the sky darkened, and thunder began to
mutter. Clouds were rising over the hills, as dreary and dull as the
first forebodings of an approaching calamity; and in a moment all
around was wrapped in shadow. I looked behind. The Indians had
stopped to prepare for the approaching storm, and the dark, dense
mass of savages stretched far to the right and left. Since the first
attack of my disorder the effects of rain upon me had usually been
injurious in the extreme. I had no strength to spare, having at that
moment scarcely enough to keep my seat on horseback. Then, for the
first time, it pressed upon me as a strong probability that I might
never leave those deserts. "Well," thought I to myself, "a prairie
makes quick and sharp work. Better to die here, in the saddle to the
last, than to stifle in the hot air of a sick chamber, and a thousand
times better than to drag out life, as many have done, in the
helpless inaction of lingering disease."  So, drawing the buffalo
robe on which I sat over my head, I waited till the storm should
come. It broke at last with a sudden burst of fury, and passing away
as rapidly as it came, left the sky clear again. My reflections
served me no other purpose than to look back upon as a piece of
curious experience; for the rain did not produce the ill effects that
I had expected. We encamped within an hour. Having no change of
clothes, I contrived to borrow a curious kind of substitute from
Reynal: and this done, I went home, that is, to the Big Crow's lodge
to make the entire transfer that was necessary. Half a dozen squaws
were in the lodge, and one of them taking my arm held it against her
own, while a general laugh and scream of admiration were raised at
the contrast in the color of the skin.

Our encampment that afternoon was not far distant from a spur of the
Black Hills, whose ridges, bristling with fir trees, rose from the
plains a mile or two on our right. That they might move more rapidly
toward their proposed hunting-grounds, the Indians determined to
leave at this place their stock of dried meat and other superfluous
articles. Some left even their lodges, and contented themselves with
carrying a few hides to make a shelter from the sun and rain. Half
the inhabitants set out in the afternoon, with loaded pack horses,
toward the mountains. Here they suspended the dried meat upon trees,
where the wolves and grizzly bears could not get at it. All returned
at evening. Some of the young men declared that they had heard the
reports of guns among the mountains to the eastward, and many
surmises were thrown out as to the origin of these sounds. For my
part, I was in hopes that Shaw and Henry Chatillon were coming to
join us. I would have welcomed them cordially, for I had no other
companions than two brutish white men and five hundred savages. I
little suspected that at that very moment my unlucky comrade was
lying on a buffalo robe at Fort Laramie, fevered with ivy poison, and
solacing his woes with tobacco and Shakespeare.

As we moved over the plains on the next morning, several young men
were riding about the country as scouts; and at length we began to
see them occasionally on the tops of the hills, shaking their robes
as a signal that they saw buffalo. Soon after, some bulls came in
sight. Horsemen darted away in pursuit, and we could see from the
distance that one or two of the buffalo were killed. Raymond
suddenly became inspired. I looked at him as he rode by my side; his
face had actually grown intelligent!

"This is the country for me!" he said; "if I could only carry the
buffalo that are killed here every month down to St. Louis I'd make
my fortune in one winter. I'd grow as rich as old Papin, or
Mackenzie either. I call this the poor man's market. When I'm
hungry I have only got to take my rifle and go out and get better
meat than the rich folks down below can get with all their money.
You won't catch me living in St. Louis another winter."

"No," said Reynal, "you had better say that after you and your
Spanish woman almost starved to death there. What a fool you were
ever to take her to the settlements."

"Your Spanish woman?" said I; "I never heard of her before. Are you
married to her?"

"No," answered Raymond, again looking intelligent; "the priests don't
marry their women, and why should I marry mine?"

This honorable mention of the Mexican clergy introduced the subject
of religion, and I found that my two associates, in common with other
white men in the country, were as indifferent to their future welfare
as men whose lives are in constant peril are apt to be. Raymond had
never heard of the Pope. A certain bishop, who lived at Taos or at
Santa Fe, embodied his loftiest idea of an ecclesiastical dignitary.
Reynal observed that a priest had been at Fort Laramie two years ago,
on his way to the Nez Perce mission, and that he had confessed all
the men there and given them absolution. "I got a good clearing out
myself that time," said Reynal, "and I reckon that will do for me
till I go down to the settlements again."

Here he interrupted himself with an oath and exclaimed: "Look! look!
The Panther is running an antelope!"

The Panther, on his black and white horse, one of the best in the
village, came at full speed over the hill in hot pursuit of an
antelope that darted away like lightning before him. The attempt was
made in mere sport and bravado, for very few are the horses that can
for a moment compete in swiftness with this little animal. The
antelope ran down the hill toward the main body of the Indians who
were moving over the plain below. Sharp yells were given and
horsemen galloped out to intercept his flight. At this he turned
sharply to the left and scoured away with such incredible speed that
he distanced all his pursuers and even the vaunted horse of the
Panther himself. A few moments after we witnessed a more serious
sport. A shaggy buffalo bull bounded out from a neighboring hollow,
and close behind him came a slender Indian boy, riding without
stirrups or saddle and lashing his eager little horse to full speed.
Yard after yard he drew closer to his gigantic victim, though the
bull, with his short tail erect and his tongue lolling out a foot
from his foaming jaws, was straining his unwieldy strength to the
utmost. A moment more and the boy was close alongside of him. It
was our friend the Hail-Storm. He dropped the rein on his horse's
neck and jerked an arrow like lightning from the quiver at his
shoulder.

"I tell you," said Reynal, "that in a year's time that boy will match
the best hunter in the village. There he has given it to him! and
there goes another! You feel well, now, old bull, don't you, with
two arrows stuck in your lights? There, he has given him another!
Hear<