 9. Scenes at Fort Laramie Looking back after the expiration of a year upon Fort Laramie and its inmates, they seemed 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 enclosed it. Numerous squaws, gaily bedizoned, sat grouped in front of the apartments they occupied. Their mongrel offspring, restless and vociferous, rolled in every direction through the fort, and the trappers, traders, and engagee of the establishment were busy at their labour 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 Shadilon explained that we were not traders, and we in confirmation, handed to the bourgeois a letter of introduction from his principles. 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 Montelon. 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 a master of ceremonies. Discarding all formalities of reception, he did not honour 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 pape, 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, dabbed 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 Vascus, 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 monopolized 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 700 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 safekeeping. 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 semi-circle 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 sepulcher 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 sepulcher 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 enclosure. 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 Châtellin 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 engageries 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 and 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 hid 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 crestful and countenance appeared at the door. To add to the bourgeois's 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 passageway between the gates, conversing with the traitors Vascus and May. These two men, together with our sleek friend, the clerk Montelon, wore, I believe, the only persons then in the fort who could read and write. May was telling a curious story about the traveller 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 link-side 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 rye 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 hag screaming after their fashion on all occasions of excitement. Buxom young squaws, blooming in all the charms of Vermillion, 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 tranquility 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 broadbrimmed hats, thin visages, and staring eyes appeared suddenly at the gate. Tall, awkward men in brown homespun, women with cadaverous faces and long-length figures came thronging in together, and, as if inspired by the very demon of curiosity, ransacked every nook and corner of the town. 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 an exchange to perfluous articles of their own. The emigrants felt a violent prejudice against the French Indians, as they called the trappers and traitors. 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 schoolboys 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 backwoodsmen. 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 as it arrives in succession at the fort and demand a feast. Smokes 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 semi-circle. 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. The 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 Ogallala, 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 a 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 Meneasca 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 bow, 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 and 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 upon a scalp. Passing these the tall dark lodges rose between us and the red western sky. We repaired it 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 patience 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 to introduce that harmless system of treatment among the Ogallala. 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 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 her 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-urgent. 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. Forceasing 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 decoder can offer to his guest, and knowing that to refuse eating would be in 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 levy, 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 our, he kept carefully aloof. It was but too evident that we had the unhappiness to have forfeited the kind regards of our London fellow-traveller. 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 Ogallala 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 Vasquez the traitor 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 300 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 toward the common center at Le Bonce Camp on the plat. Here their warlike 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 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 Labonte's camp. Our plan was to leave the lorryer 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 Labonte'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 flooded 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 bandits 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 otterskin quiver at his back. In this skies, 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 ascance 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 the following import. The squaw of Henry Shatalon, 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 in humanity. 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 twentieth 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 Deloria's mercurial countenance. This was not the only reinforcement to our party. A vagrant Indian trader named Reynald joined us together with his squaw Margo and her two nephews, our dandy friend the horse, and his younger brother, the hailstorm. Thus accompanied, we betook ourselves to the prairie, leaving the beaten trail, and passing over the desolate hills that flanked the bottoms of Laramie Creek. In all, Indians and whites, we counted eight men and one woman. Reynald 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. Margo, a female animal of more than two hundred pounds weight, was couched in the basket of a travai, 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 pack horse, who carried the covering of Reynald's lodge. Deloria 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 Châtalon 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, widest chalk, shut in this green strip of woods in Meadowland 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 hair, 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 in 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 ranked 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 cottonwood tree spread its branches horizontally over our tent. Laramie Creek circling before our camp half enclosed 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 copes on our right. The cliffs too were half hidden by shrubbery, though behind us a few cottonwood trees dotting the green prairie alone impeded the view, and friend or enemy could be discerned in that direction at a miles distance. Here we resolved to remain and await the arrival of the whirlwind who would certainly pass this way in his progress toward La Bonce 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 in 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 Châtalon 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 armchairs where we could sit in the shade and read or smoke. But mealtimes 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 bow, and haunches were suspended against the trunk. That camp is daguerre-typed 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 powderhorn 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-flesh 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 wasn't adept at this work. He and a lorrier have joined forces and are hard at work together over the fire, while raiment spreads by way of tablecloth a buffalo hide, carefully whitened with pipe clay on the grass before the tent. Here with ostentatious display he arranges the tea cups 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 Châtelon 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 chug water, 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 was 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 neighboring prairie dog village. Around our fire at night we employed ourselves in invading against the fickleness and inconstancy of Indians and execrating the whirlwind in all his village. At last the thing grew insufferable. Tomorrow 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 Matto Tatanka 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 in 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 kapot, 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 in his little keen snake-like eyes looked out from beneath the shadowy hood of the kapot, 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 in camp 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 Hohes on the Upper Missouri, slaughtering men, women, and children, and how an overwhelming force of them cut off sixteen of the brave Delaware's 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 as 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 30 and 40 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 semi-circular 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 outnumbering them tenfold, they did not dream of storming a 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 entrenchment. 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 trappers 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 Winne-Kangu 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 had seemed, had made the discovery at this late day, that they had encumbered themselves with too many supplies for their journey. Apart, 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 whiskey 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 whiskey, 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 tall 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 Carney, 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. Perot, 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. Perot 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 in an old woman. It all availed nothing. Bordeaux's prudence got the better of his valour, and he would not stir. Perot stood showering opprobrious 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're 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 and constant disposition. That morning Bordeaux fastened upon him, made him presence, 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 dally calling to the Great Spirit to aid them in their enterprise. McCluskey had just left and represented them as on their way to Le Bonce 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 Minakangu villages that I mentioned before. But about noon an Indian came from Richards Fort with the news that they were quarreling, breaking up, and dispersing, so much for the whiskey of the emigrants. Finding themselves unable to drink the whole, they had sold the residue to these Indians, and it needed no profit 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 war-like 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 and small parties. I feared that, after all, the long projected meeting and the ceremonies that were too attendant 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 that he had lost a shoe and broken his tender white hoof against the rocks. Horses are shot at Fort Laramie at the moderate rate of three dollars a foot, so I tied Hendrick to a beam in the corral and summoned Rubidu the blacksmith. Rubidu 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's more of us left yet. Here's Jean Gar and me off to the mountains tomorrow. Our charn 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 thyme 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 three-trapper. He had a round, ruddy face, animated with a spirit of carelessness and gaiety, 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 Arapahos have just killed two of us in the mountains. Old Bulltail 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 berry, Rulo, said another trapper who was standing by, a strong, brutal-looking fellow with a face as surly as a bulldog's. Rulo 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 immigrant wagons was passing across the stream. Where are you going, 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 you'd better and keep a bright look out for Indians. I thought the advice too good to be neglected. Forting the stream I passed it 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 sage bushes 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, wither I had no time to follow. Ten minutes after I was passing along the bottom of a deep valley, and chanceing 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 two hundred four 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 chug water it was totally dark. Slackening the rains 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 Raynall, 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 Châtalon being still absent. At noon or 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 hence-forward 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 trevi 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 Matto Tatanka, a younger brother of the woman hastily called after them. Turning back they found all the Indians crowded around the trevi 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 hallelujah, 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 presence 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.