 CHAPTER 17 THE BLACK HILLS We traveled eastward for two days, and then the gloomy ridges of the black hills rose up before us. The village passed along for some miles beneath their declivities, trailing out to a great length over the arid prairie, or winding at times among small detached hills or distorted shapes. Turning sharply to the left, we entered a wide defile of the mountains, down the bottom of which a brook came winding, lined with tall grass and dense copeses, amid which were hidden many beaver dams and lodges. We passed along between two lines of high precipices and rocks, piled in utter disorder one upon another, and with scarcely a tree, a bush, or a clump of grass, to veil their nakedness. The restless Indian boys were wandering along their edges and clambering up and down their rugged sides, and sometimes a group of them would stand on the verge of a cliff and look down on the array as it passed and review beneath them. As we advanced, the passage grew more narrow, then it suddenly expanded into a round grassy meadow completely encompassed by mountains, and here the family stopped as they came up in turn, and the camp rose like magic. The lodges were hardly erected when, with their usual precipitation, the Indians set about accomplishing the object that had brought them there, that is, the obtaining poles for supporting their new lodges. Half the population, men, women, and boys, mounted their horses and set out for the interior of the mountains. As they rode at full gallop over the shingly rocks and into the dark opening of the defile beyond, I thought I had never read or dreamed of a more strange or picturesque cavalcade. We passed between precipices more than a thousand feet high, sharp and splintering at the tops, their sides beatling over the defile, or descending in abrupt eclivities bristling with black fir trees. On our left they rose close to us like a wall, but on the right a winding brook with a narrow strip of marshy soil intervened. The stream was clogged with old beaver dams and spread frequently into wide pools. There were thick bushes and many dead and blasted trees along its course, though frequently nothing remained but the stumps cut close to the ground by the beaver and marked with the sharp chisel-like teeth of those indefatigable laborers. Sometimes we were driving among trees and then emerging upon open spots over which Indian-like all galloped at full speed. As Pauline bounded over the rocks I felt her saddle girth slipping and delighted to draw it tighter. When the whole array swept past me in a moment the women with their gaudy ornaments tinkling as they rode, the men whooping and laughing and lashing forward their horses. Two black-tailed deer bounded away among the rocks. Raymond shot at them from horseback. The sharp report of his rifle was answered by another equally sharp from the opposing cliffs, and then the echoes leaping in rapid succession from side to side died away rattling far amid the mountains. After having ridden in this manner for six or eight miles the appearance of the scene began to change and all the declivities around us were covered with forests of tall slender pine trees. The Indians began to fall off to the right and left and dispersed with their hatchets and knives among these woods to cut the poles which they had come to seek. Even I was left almost alone, but in the deep stillness of those lonely mountains the stroke of hatchets and the sound of voices might be heard from far and near. Ray Nall, who imitated the Indians in their habits as well as the worst features of their character, had killed Buffalo enough to make a lodge for himself and his squaw, and now he was eager to get the poles necessary to complete it. He asked me to let Raymond go with him and assist in the work. I was centered and the two men immediately entered the thickest part of the wood. Having left my horse and Raymond's keeping I began to climb the mountain. I was weak and weary and made slow progress, often pausing to rest, but after an hour had elapsed I gained a height whence the little valley out of which I had climbed seemed like a deep, dark gulf, though the inaccessible peak of the mountain was still towering to a much greater distance above. Things familiar from childhood surrounded me. Crags and rocks, a black and sullen brook that gurgled with a hollow voice deep among the crevices, a wood of mossy distorted trees and prostrate trunks flung down by age and storms scattered among the rocks or damning the foaming waters of the little brook. The objects were the same, yet they were thrown into a wilder and more startling scene, for the black crags and the savage trees assumed a grim and threatening aspect, and close across the valley the opposing mountain confronted me, rising from the gulf for thousands of feet with its bare pinnacles and its ragged covering of pines. Yet the scene was not without its milder features. As I ascended I found frequent little grassy terraces, and there was one of these close at hand across which the brook was stealing beneath the shade of scattered trees that seemed artificially planted. Here I made a welcome discovery, no other than a bed of strawberries with their white flowers and their red fruit, close nestled among the grass by the side of the brook. And I sat down by them, hailing them as old acquaintances, for among those lonely and perilous mountains they awakened delicious associations of the gardens and peaceful homes of far distant New England. But wild as they were these mountains were thickly peopled. As I climbed farther I found the broad, dusty paths made by the elk as they filed across the mountainside. The grass on all the terraces was trampled down by deer, there were numerous tracts of wolves, and in some of the rougher and more precipitous parts of the ascent I found footprints different from any that I had ever seen, and which I took to be those of the rocky mountain sheep. I sat down upon a rock. There was a perfect stillness. No wind was stirring, and not even an insect could be heard. I recollected the danger of becoming lost in such a place, and therefore I fixed my eye upon one of the tallest pinnacles of the opposite mountain. It rose sheer upright from the woods below, and by an extraordinary freak of nature sustained aloft on its very summit a large, loose rock. Such a landmark could never be mistaken, and feeling once more secure I began again to move forward. A white wolf jumped up from among some bushes and leaped clumsily away, but he stopped for a moment and turned back his keen eye and his grim, bristling muzzle. I longed to take his scalp and carry it back with me as an appropriate trophy of the black hills, but before I could fire he was gone among the rocks. Soon I heard a rustling sound, with a cracking of twigs at a little distance, and saw moving above the tall bushes the branching antlers of an elk. I was in the midst of a hunter's paradise. Such are the black hills, as I found them in July, but they wear a different garb when winter sets in, when the broad boughs of the fir tree are bent to the ground by the load of snow, and the dark mountains are widened with it. At that season the mountain trappers, returned from their autumn expeditions, often build their rude cabins in the midst of these solitudes, and live in abundance and luxury on the game that harbors there. I have heard them relate how, with their tawny mistresses, and perhaps a few young Indian companions, they have spent months in total seclusion. They would dig pitfalls and set traps for the white wolves, the sables and the martins, and though through the whole night the awful chorus of the wolves would resound from the frozen mountains around them, yet within their massive walls of logs they would lie in careless ease and comfort before the blazing fire, and in the morning shoot the elk and the deer from their very door. CHAPTER 18 A MOUNTAIN HUNT The camp was full of the newly cut lodge poles. Some already prepared were stacked together, white and glistening, to dry and harden in the sun. Others were lying on the ground, and the squaws, the boys and even some of the warriors, were busily at work peeling off the bark and paring them with their knives to the proper dimensions. Most of the hides obtained at the last camp were dressed and scraped thin enough for use, and many of the squaws were engaged in fitting them together and sewing them with sinews to form the coverings for the lodges. Men were wandering among the bushes that lined the brook along the margin of the camp, cutting sticks of red willow, or shang-sasha, the bark of which mixed with tobacco they used for smoking. Reynald's squaw was hard at work with her all-and-buffalo sinews upon her lodge, while her proprietor, having just finished an enormous breakfast of meat, was smoking a social pipe along with Raymond and myself. He proposed at length that we should go out on a hunt. Go to the big crows' lodge, said he, and get your rifle. I'll bet the gray Wyandot pony against your mare that we start an elk or a black-tailed deer, or likely is not a bighorn before we are two miles out of camp. I'll take my squaw's old yellow horse. You can't whip her more than four miles an hour, but she is as good for the mountains as a mule. I mounted the black mule which Raymond usually rode. She was a very fine and powerful animal, gentle and manageable enough by nature, but of late her temper had been soured by misfortune. About a week before I had chanced to offend some one of the Indians, who out of revenge went secretly into the meadow and gave her a severe stab in the haunch with his knife. The wound, though partially healed, still galled her extremely, and made her even more perverse and obstinate than the rest of her species. The morning was a glorious one, and I was in better health than I had been at any time for the last two months. Though a strong frame and well-compacted sinews had borne me through hither too, it was long since I had been in a condition to feel the exhilaration of the fresh mountain wind and the gay sunshine that brightened the crags and trees. We left the little valley and ascended a rocky hollow in the mountain. Very soon we were out of sight of the camp, and of every living thing, man, beast, bird, or insect. I had never before, except on foot, passed over such excruable ground, and I desired never to repeat the experiment. The black mule grew indignant, and even the redoubtable yellow horse stumbled every moment and kept groaning to himself as he cut his feet and legs among the sharp rocks. It was a scene of silence and desolation. Little was visible except beatling crags and the bare shingly sides of the mountains, relieved by scarcely a trace of vegetation. At length, however, we came upon a forest tract, and had no sooner done so than we heartily wished ourselves back among the rocks again, for we were on a steep descent, among trees so thick that we could see scarcely a rod in any direction. If one is anxious to place himself in a situation where the hazardous and ludicrous are combined in about equal proportions, let him get upon a vicious mule with a snaffle bit, and try to drive her through the woods down a slope of forty-five degrees. Let him have on a long rifle, a buckskin frock with long fringes, and a head of long hair. These latter appendages will be caught every moment and twitched away in small portions by the twigs, which will also whip him smartly across the face, while the large branches above thump him on the head. His mule, if she be a true one, will alternately stop short and dive violently forward, and his position upon her back will be somewhat diversified and extraordinary. At one time he will clasp her affectionately to avoid the blow of a bow overhead, and at another he will throw himself back and fling his knee forward against the side of her neck to keep it from being crushed between the rough bark of a tree and the equally unyielding ribs of the animal herself. Reynal was cursing incessantly during the whole way down. Neither of us had the remotest idea where we were going, and though I have seen rough riding, I shall always retain an evil recollection of that five-minute scramble. At last we left our troubles behind us, emerging into the channel of a brook that circled along the foot of the descent, and here, turning joyfully to the left, we rode in luxury and ease over the white pebbles and the rippling water shaded from the glaring sun by an overarching green transparency. These halcyon moments were of short duration. The friendly brook, turning sharply to one side, went brawling and foaming down the rocky hill into an abyss, which, as far as we could discern, had no bottom. So once more we betook ourselves to the detested woods. When next we came forth from their dancing shadow and sunlight, we found ourselves standing in the broad glare of the day, on a high jutting point of the mountain. Before us stretched a long, wide desert valley, winding away far amid the mountains. No civilized eye but mine had ever looked upon that virgin waste. Reynal was gazing intently. He began to speak at last. Many a time when I was with the Indians I have been hunting for gold all through the black hills. There's plenty of it here. You may be certain of that. I have dreamed about it fifty times, and I never dreamed yet but what it came true. Look over yonder at those black rocks piled up against that other big rock. Don't it look as if there might be something there? It won't do for a white man to be rummaging too much about these mountains. The Indians say they are full of bad spirits, and I believe myself that it's no good luck to be hunting about here after gold. Well for all that I would like to have one of these fellows up here from down below to go about with his witch-hazel rod, and I'll guarantee that it would not be long before he would light on a gold mine. Never mind. We'll let the gold alone for today. Look at those trees down below us in the hollow. We'll go down there, and I reckon we'll get a black-tailed deer. But Reynal's predictions were not verified. We passed mountain after mountain and valley after valley. We explored deep ravines, yet still to my companion's vexation and evidence surprise no game could be found. So in the absence of better, we resolved to go out on the planes and look for an antelope. With this view we began to pass down a narrow valley, the bottom of which was covered with the stiff wild sage bushes and marked with deep paths made by the buffalo, who for some inexplicable reason are accustomed to penetrate in their long-grave processions deep among the gorges of these sterile mountains. Reynal's eye was ranging incessantly among the rocks and along the edges of the black precipices in hopes of discovering the mountain sheep peering down upon us in fancied security from that giddy elevation. Nothing was visible for some time. At length we both detected something in motion near the foot of one of the mountains, and in a moment afterward a black-tailed deer with his spreading antlers stood gazing at us from the top of a rock, and then slowly turning away disappeared behind it. In an instant Reynal was out of his saddle and running toward the spot. I, being too weak to follow, sat holding his horse and waiting the result. I lost sight of him, then heard the report of his rifle deadened among the rocks, and finally saw him reappear with a surly look that plainly betrayed his ill success. Then we moved forward down the long valley, when soon after we came full upon what seemed a wide and very shallow ditch encrusted at the bottom with white clay dried and cracked in the sun. Under this fair outside Reynal's eye detected the signs of lurking mischief. He called me to stop, and then lighting picked up a stone and threw it into the ditch. To my utter amazement it fell with a dull splash breaking it once through the thin crust and spattering round the hole a yellowish creamy fluid into which it sank and disappeared. A stick five or six feet long lay on the ground, and with this we sounded the insidious abyss close to its edge. It was just possible to touch the bottom. Places like this are numerous among the rocky mountains. The buffalo in his blind and heedless walk often plunges into them unawares. Down he sinks, one snort of terror, one convulsive struggle, and the slime calmly flows above his shaggy head, the languid undulations of its sleek and placid surface alone betraying how the powerful monster writhes in his death-throws below. We found after some trouble a point where we could pass the abyss, and now the valley began to open upon the plains which spread to the horizon before us. On one of their distant swells we discerned three or four black specks, which Reynal pronounced to be buffalo. Come, said he, we must get one of them. My squaw wants more sinews to finish her lodge with, and I want some glue myself. He immediately put the yellow horse at such a gallop as he was capable of executing, while I set spurs to the mule, who soon far outran her plebeian rival. When we had galloped a mile or more, a large rabbit by ill luck sprang up just under the feet of the mule, who bounded violently aside in full career. Weakened as I was, I was flung forcibly to the ground, and my rifle, falling close to my head, went off with a shock. Its sharp, spiteful report rang for some moments in my ear. Being slightly stunned, I lay for an instant motionless, and Reynal, supposing me to be shot, rode up and began to curse the mule. When recovering myself, I rose, picked up the rifle, and anxiously examined it. It was badly injured. The stock was cracked, and the main screw broken, so that the lock had to be tied in its place with a string. Yet happily it was not rendered totally unserviceable. I wiped it out, reloaded it, and handing it to Reynal, who meanwhile had caught the mule and led her up to me, I mounted again. No sooner had I done so than the brute began to rear and plunge with extreme violence. But being now well-prepared for her, and free from encumbrance, I soon reduced her to submission. Then taking the rifle again from Reynal, we galloped forward as before. We were now free of the mountain, and riding far out on the broad prairie. The buffalo were still some two miles in advance of us. When we came near them, we stopped, where a gentle swell of the plain concealed us from their view, and while I held his horse, Reynal ran forward with his rifle till I lost sight of him beyond the rising ground. A few minutes he lapsed. I heard the report of his piece, and saw the buffalo running away at full speed on the right, and immediately after the hunter himself, unsuccessful as before, came up and mounted his horse in excessive ill-humour. He cursed the black hills, and the buffalo, swore that he was a good hunter, which indeed was true, and that he had never been out before among those mountains without killing two or three deer, at least. We now turned toward the distant encampment. As we rode along, antelope and considerable numbers were flying lightly in all directions over the plain, but not one of them would stand and be shot at. When we reached the foot of the mountain ridge that lay between us and the village, we were too impatient to take the smooth and circuitous route, so, turning short to the left, we drove our wearied animals directly upward among the rocks. Still more antelope were leaping about among these flinty hillsides. Each of us shot at one, though from a great distance, and each missed his mark. At length we reached the summit of the last ridge. Looking down, we saw the bustling camp in the valley at our feet, and ingloriously descended to it. As we rode among the lodges, the Indians looked in vain for the fresh meat that should have hung behind our saddles, and the squaws uttered various suppressed ejaculations to the great indignation of reynal. Our mortification was increased when we rode up to his lodge. Here we saw his young Indian relative the hailstorm, his light graceful figure on the ground in an easy attitude, while with his friend the rabbit who sat by his side he was making an abundant meal from a wooden bowl of wasna, which the squaw had placed between them. Near him lay the fresh skin of a female elk, which he had just killed among the mountains, only a mile or two from the camp. No doubt the boy's heart was elated with triumph, but he betrayed no sign of it. He even seemed totally unconscious of our approach, and his handsome face had all the tranquility of Indian self-control, a self-control which prevents the exhibition of emotion without restraining the emotion itself. It was about two months since I had known the hailstorm, and within that time his character had remarkably developed. When I first saw him he was just emerging from the habits and feelings of the boy into the ambition of the hunter and warrior. He had lately killed his first deer, and this had excited his aspirations after distinction. Since that time he had been continually in search of game, and no young hunter in the village had been so active or so fortunate as he. It will perhaps be remembered how fearlessly he attacked the buffalo bull as we were moving toward our camp at the Medicine Bow Mountain. All this success had produced a marked change in his character. As I first remembered him, he always shunned the society of the young squaws and was extremely bashful and sheepish in their presence. But now, in the confidence of his own reputation, he began to assume the heirs in the arts of a man of gallantry. He wore his red blanket dashingly over his left shoulder, painted his cheeks every day with vermilion, and hung pendants of shells in his ears. If I observed it right, he met with very good success in his new pursuits. Still the hailstorm had much to accomplish before he attained the full standing of a warrior. Gallantly as he began to bear himself among the women and girls, he still was timid and abashed in the presence of the chiefs and old men, for he had never yet killed a man or stricken the dead body of an enemy in battle. I have no doubt that the handsome, smooth-faced boy burned with keen desire to flash his maiden-scalping knife, and I would not have encamped alone with him without watching his movements with a distrustful eye. His elder brother, the horse, was of a different character. He was nothing but a lazy dandy. He knew very well how to hunt, but preferred to live by the hunting of others. He had no appetite for distinction, and the hailstorm, though a few years younger than he, already surpassed him in reputation. He had a dark and ugly face, and he passed a great part of his time in adorning it with vermilion, and contemplating it by means of a little pocket-looking glass which I gave him. As for the rest of the day, he divided it between eating and sleeping and sitting in the sun on the outside of a lodge. Here he would remain for hour after hour, arrayed in all his finery, with an old dragoon's sword in his hand, and evidently flattering himself that he was the center of attraction to the eyes of the surrounding squaws. Yet he sat looking straight forward with a face of the utmost gravity, as if wrapped in profound meditation, and it was only by the occasional side-long glances which he shot at his supposed admirers that one could detect the true course of his thoughts. Both he and his brother may represent a class in the Indian community. Neither should the hailstorm's friend the rabbit be passed by without notice. The hailstorm and he were inseparable. They ate, slept, and hunted together, and shared with one another almost all that they possessed. If there be anything that deserves to be called romantic in the Indian character, it is to be sought for in friendships such as this, which are quite common among many of the prairie tribes. Slowly, hour after hour, that weary afternoon dragged away. I lay in Raynal's Lodge, overcome by the listless torpor that pervaded the whole encampment. The day's work was finished, or if it were not, the inhabitants had resolved not to finish it at all, and all were dozing quietly within the shelter of the lodges. A profound lethargy, the very spirit of indolence, seemed to have sunk upon the village. Now and then I could hear the low laughter of some girl from within a neighboring lodge, or the small shrill voices of a few restless children who alone were moving in the deserted area. The spirit of the place infected me. I could not even think consecutively. I was fit only for musing and reverie. When at last, like the rest, I fell asleep. When evening came and the fires were lighted round the lodges, a select family circle convened in the neighborhood of Raynal's domicile. It was composed entirely of his squaw's relatives, a mean and ignoble clan, among whom none but the hail storm held forth any promise of future distinction. When his protests were rendered not a little dubious by the character of the family, less, however, from any principle of aristocratic distinction than from the want of powerful supporters to assist him in his undertakings and help to avenge his quarrels, Raymond and I sat down along with them. There were eight or ten men gathered around the fire, together with about as many women, old and young, some of whom were tolerably good-looking. As the pipe passed round among the men, a lively conversation went forward, more merry than delicate, and at length two or three of the elder women, for the girls were somewhat diffident and bashful, began to assail Raymond with various pungent witticisms. Some of the men took part, and an old squaw concluded by bestowing on him a ludicrous nickname at which her general laugh followed at his expense. Raymond grinned and giggled, and made several futile attempts at repartee. Knowing the impolicy and even danger of suffering myself to be placed in a ludicrous light among the Indians, I maintained a rigid inflexible countenance, and wholly escaped their sallies. In the morning I found, to my great disgust, that the camp was to retain its position for another day. I dreaded its languor and monotony, and to escape it I set out to explore the surrounding mountains. I was accompanied by a faithful friend, my rifle, the only friend indeed on whose prompt assistance and time of trouble I could implicitly rely. Most of the Indians in the village it is true professed good will toward the whites, but the experience of others and my own observation had taught me the extreme folly of confidence and the utter impossibility of foreseeing to what sudden acts the strange unbridled impulses of an Indian may urge him. When among this people danger is never so near as when you are unprepared for it, never so remote as when you are armed and on the alert to meet it at any moment. Nothing offers so strong a temptation to their ferocious instincts as the appearance of timidity, weakness, or security. Many deep and gloomy gorges choked with trees and bushes open from the sides of the hills, which were shaggy with forests wherever the rocks permitted vegetation to spring. A great number of Indians were stalking along the edges of the woods, and boys were whooping and laughing on the mountain sides, practicing eye and hand, and indulging their destructive propensities by following birds and small animals and killing them with their little bows and arrows. There was one glen stretching up between steep cliffs far into the bosom of the mountain. I began to ascend along its bottom, pushing my way onward among the rocks, trees, and bushes that obstructed it. A slender thread of water trickled along its center, which since issuing from the heart of its native rock could scarcely have been warmed or gladdened by a ray of sunshine. After advancing for some time, I conceived myself to be entirely alone, but coming to a part of the glen in a great measure free of trees and undergrowth, I saw at some distance the black head and red shoulders of an Indian among the bushes above. The reader need not prepare himself for a startling adventure, for I have none to relate. The head and shoulders belonged to Menesila, my best friend in the village. As I had approached noiselessly with my moccasin feet, the old man was quite unconscious of my presence, and turning to a point where I could gain an unobstructed view of him, I saw him seated alone, immovable as a statue among the rocks and trees. His face was turned upward, and his eyes seemed riveted on a pine tree, springing from a left in the precipice above. The crest of the pine was swaying to and fro in the wind, and its long limbs waved slowly up and down as if the tree had life. Looking for a while at the old man, I was satisfied that he was engaged in an act of worship, or prayer, or communion of some kind with a supernatural being. I longed to penetrate his thoughts, but I could do nothing more than conjecture and speculate. I knew that though the intellect of an Indian can embrace the idea of an all-wise, all-powerful spirit, the supreme ruler of the universe, yet his mind will not always ascend into communion with the being that seems to him so vast, remote, and incomprehensible. And when danger threatens, when his hopes are broken, when the black wing of sorrow overshadows him, he is prone to turn for relief to some inferior agency, less removed from the ordinary scope of his faculties. He has a guardian spirit on whom he relies for succor and guidance. To him all nature is instinct with mystic influence. Among those mountains not a wild beast was prowling, a bird singing or a leaf fluttering that might not tend to direct his destiny or give warning of what was in store for him, and he watches the world of nature around him as the astrologer watches the stars. So closely is he linked with it that his guardian spirit, no unsubstantial creation of the fancy, is usually embodied in the form of some living thing, a bear, a wolf, an eagle, or a serpent, and Menacella, as he gazed intently on the old pine tree, might believe it to enshrine the fancied guide and protector of his life. Whatever was passing in the mind of the old man, it was no part of sense or of delicacy to disturb him. Silently retracing my footsteps, I descended the glen until I came to a point where I could climb the steep precipices that shudded in and gain the side of the mountain. Looking up, I saw a tall peak rising among the woods. Something impelled me to climb. I had not felt for many a day such strength and elasticity of limb. An hour and a half of slow and often intermittent labor brought me to the very summit, and emerging from the dark shadows of the rocks and pines, I stepped forth into the light, and walking along the sunny verge of a precipice seated myself on its extreme point. Looking between the mountain peaks to the westward, papal blue prairie was stretching to the farthest horizon like a serene and tranquil ocean. The surrounding mountains were in themselves sufficiently striking and impressive, but this contrast gave redoubled effect to their stern features. CHAPTER XIX When I took leave of Shaw at Le Bonce camp, I promised that I would meet him at Fort Laramie on the first of August. That day, according to my reckoning, was now close at hand. It was impossible at best to fulfill my engagement exactly, and my meeting with him must have been postponed until many days after the appointed time had not the plans of the Indians very well coincided with my own. They too intended to pass the mountains and move toward the fort. To do so at this point was impossible because there was no opening, and in order to find a passage we were obliged to go twelve or fourteen miles southward. Even in the afternoon the camp got in motion, defiling back through the mountains along the same narrow passage by which they had entered. I rode in company with three or four young Indians at Therir, and the moving swarms stretched before me in the ruddy light of sunset or in the deep shadow of the mountains far beyond my sight. It was an ill-ohmen spot they chose to encamp upon. When they were there just a year before, a war-party of ten men led by the whirlwind sun had gone out against the enemy, and not one had ever returned. This was the immediate cause of this season's war-like preparations. I was not a little astonished when I came to the camp at the confusion of horrible sounds with which it was filled. Howls, shrieks, and whalings were heard from all the women present, many of whom, not content with this exhibition of grief for the loss of their friends and relatives, were gashing their legs deeply with knives. A warrior in the village who had lost a brother in the expedition chose another mode of displaying his sorrow. The Indians, who, though often rapacious, are utterly devoid of avarice, are accustomed in times of mourning or on other solemn occasions to give away the whole of their possessions and reduce themselves to nakedness and want. The warrior in question led his two best horses into the center of the village and gave them away to his friends. Upon which songs and acclamations in praise of his generosity mingled with the cries of the women. On the next morning we entered once more among the mountains. There was nothing in their appearance either grand or picturesque, though they were desolate to the last degree, being mere piles of black and broken rocks without trees or vegetation of any kind. As we passed among them along a wide valley, I noticed Raymond riding by the side of a younger squaw to whom he was addressing various insinuating compliments. All the old squaws in the neighborhood watched his proceedings in great admiration, and the girl herself would turn aside her head and laugh. Just then the old mule thought proper to display her vicious pranks. She began to rear and plunge most furiously. Raymond was an excellent rider, and at first he stuck fast in his seat. But the moment after I saw the mules hind legs flourishing in the air and my unlucky follower pitching head foremost over her ears. There was a burst of screams and laughter from all the women in which his mistress herself took part, and Raymond was instantly assailed by such a shower of witticisms that he was glad to ride forward out of hearing. Not long after, as I rode near him, I heard him shouting to me. He was pointing toward a detached rocky hill that stood in the middle of the valley before us, and from behind it a long file of elk came out at full speed and entered an opening in the side of the mountain. They had scarcely disappeared when whoops and exclamations came from fifty voices around me. The young men leaped from their horses, flung down their heavy buffalo robes, and ran at full speed toward the foot of the nearest mountain. I also broke away at a gallop in the same direction. Come on, come on, he called to us. Do you see that band of bighorn up yonder? If there's one of them, there's a hundred. In fact, near the summit of the mountain, I could see a large number of small white objects moving rapidly upward among the precipices, while others were filing along its rocky profile. Anxious to see the sport, I galloped forward, and entering a passage in the side of the mountain, ascended the loose rocks as far as my horse could carry me. Here I fastened her to an old pine tree that stood alone, scorching in the sun. At that moment Raymond called to me from the right that another band of sheep was close at hand in that direction. I ran up to the top of the opening, which gave me a full view into the rocky gorge beyond, and here I plainly saw some fifty or sixty sheep almost within rifle shot, clattering upward among the rocks and endeavoring after their usual custom to reach the highest point. The naked Indians bounded up lightly in pursuit. In a moment the game and hunters disappeared. Nothing could be seen or heard, but the occasional report of a gun, more and more distant, reverberating among the rocks. I turned to descend, and as I did so I could see the valley below alive with Indians passing rapidly through it on horseback and on foot. A little farther on we were all stopping as they came up. The camp was preparing, and the lodges rising. I descended to this spot, and soon after Raynall and Raymond returned. They bore between them a sheep which they had pelted to death with stones from the edge of a ravine, along the bottom of which it was attempting to escape. One by one the hunters came dropping in. Yet such is the activity of the rocky mountain sheep that although sixty or seventy men were out in pursuit, not more than half a dozen animals were killed. Of these only one was a full-grown male. He had a pair of horns twisted like a ram's, the dimensions of which were almost beyond belief. I have seen among the Indians ladles with long handles capable of containing more than a quart cut from such horns. There is something peculiarly interesting in the character and habits of the mountain sheep whose chosen retreats are above the region of vegetation and storms, and who leap among the giddy precipices of their aerial home as actively as the antelope skims over the prairies below. Through the whole of the next morning we were moving forward among the hills. On the following day the heights gathered around us, and the passage of the mountains began in earnest. Before the village left its camping ground, I set forward in company with the eagle feather, a man of powerful frame but of bad and sinister face. The sun, a light-limbed boy, rode with us, and another Indian, named the Pamphor, was also at the party. Leaving the village out of sight behind us, we rode together up a rocky defile. After a while, however, the eagle feather discovered in the distance some appearance of game and set off with his son in pursuit of it, while I went forward with the Pamphor. This was a mere nom de guerre, for like many Indians he concealed his real name out of some superstitious notion. He was a very noble-looking fellow. As he suffered his ornamented buffalo robe to fall into folds about his loins, his stately and graceful figure was fully displayed, and while he sat his horse in an easy attitude, the long feathers in the prairie cock fluttering from the crown of his head, he seemed the very model of a wild prairie rider. He had not the same features as those of other Indians, unless his handsome face greatly belied him, he was free from the jealousy, suspicion, and malignant cunning of his people. For the most part, a civilized white man can discover but very few points of sympathy between his own nature and that of an Indian. With every disposition to do justice to their good qualities, he must be conscious that an impassable gulf lies between him and his red brethren of the prairie. Nay, so alien to himself do they appear that, having breathed for a few months or a few weeks the air of this region, he begins to look upon them as a troublesome and dangerous species of wild beast, and if expedient, he could shoot them with as little compunction as they themselves would experience after performing the same office upon him. Yet in the countenance of the panther I gladly read that there were at least some points of sympathy between him and me. We were excellent friends, and as we rode forward together through rocky passages, deep dels, and little barren plains, he occupied himself very zealously in teaching me the Dakota language. After a while we came to a little grassy recess where some gooseberry bushes were growing at the foot of a rock, and these offered such temptation to my companion that he gave over his instruction and stopped so long to gather the fruit that before we were in motion again the van of the village came in view. An old woman appeared leading down her pack horse among the rocks above. Savage after savage followed, and the little dell was soon crowded with the throng. That morning's march was one not easily to be forgotten. It led us through a sublime waste, a wilderness of mountains and pine forests over which the spirit of loneliness and silence seemed brooding. Above and below little could be seen but the same dark green foliage. Overspread the valleys and the mountains were clothed with it from the black rocks that crowned their summits to the impetuous streams that circled round their base. Scenery like this it might seem could have no very cheering effect on the mind of a sick man, for today my disease had again assailed me in the midst of a horde of savages. But if the reader has ever wandered with a true hunter's spirit among the forests of Maine or the more picturesque solitudes of the Adirondack Mountains, he will understand how the somber woods and mountains around me might have awakened any other feelings than those of gloom. In truth they recalled gladdening recollections of similar scenes in a distant and far different land. After we had been advancing for several hours through passages always narrow, often obstructed and difficult, I saw at a little distance on our right a narrow opening between two high wooded precipices. All within seemed darkness and mystery. In the mood in which I found myself something strongly impaled me to enter. Passing over the intervening space I guided my horse through the rocky portal, and as I did so instinctively drew the covering from my rifle, half expecting that some unknown evil lay in ambush within those dreary recesses. The place was shut in among tall cliffs, and so deeply shadowed by a host of old pine trees that, though the sun shone bright on the side of the mountain, nothing but a dim twilight could penetrate within. As far as I could see it had no tenants except a few hawks and owls, who, dismayed at my intrusion, flapped hoarsely away among the shaggy branches. I moved forward, determined to explore the mystery to the bottom, and soon became involved among the pines. The genius of the place exercised a strange influence upon my mind. Its faculties were stimulated into extraordinary activity, and as I passed along, many half-forgotten incidents and the images of persons and things far distant rose rapidly before me with surprising distinctness. In that perilous wilderness, eight hundred miles removed beyond the faintest vestige of civilization, the scenes of another hemisphere, the seat of ancient refinement, passed before me more like a succession of vivid paintings than any mere dreams of the fancy. I saw the Church of St. Peter's illumined on the evening of Easter Day, the whole majestic pile from the cross to the foundation stone, penciled in fire and shedding a radiance like the serene light of the moon on the sea of upturned faces below. I saw the peak of Mount Etna towering above its inky mantle of clouds and lightly curling its wreaths of milk-white smoke against the soft sky flushed with the Sicilian sunset. I saw also the gloomy vaulted passages and the narrow cells of the Passionist Convent where I once had sojourned for a few days with the fanatical monks, its pale stern inmates in their robes of black, and the graded window from whence I could look out, a forbidden indulgence, upon the melancholy coliseum and the crumbling ruins of the eternal city. The mighty glaciers of the Splurgen too rose before me, gleaming in the sun-like polished silver, and those terrible solitudes, the birthplace of the Rhine, where bursting from the bowels of its native mountains it lashes and foams down the rocky abyss into the little valley of Anderre. These recollections and many more crowded upon me, until remembering that it was hardly wise to remain long in such a place, I mounted again and retraced my steps. Issuing from between the rocks I saw a few rods before me, the men, women, and children, dogs, and horses still filing slowly across the little land. A bare round hill rose directly above them. I rode to the top, and from this point I could look down on the savage procession as it passed just beneath my feet, and far on the left I could see its thin and broken line, visible only at intervals stretching away for miles among the mountains. On the farthest ridge horsemen were still descending, like mere specks in the distance. I remained on the hill until all had passed, and then descending followed after them. A little farther on I found a very small meadow set deeply amongst deep mountains, and here the whole village had encamped. The little spot was crowded with the confused and disorderly host. Some of the lodgers were already completely prepared, or the squads perhaps were busy in drawing the heavy coverings of skin over the bare poles. Others were as yet mere skeletons, while others still, poles covering and all, lay scattered in complete disorder on the ground among buffalo robes, bells of meat, domestic utensils, harness, and weapons. Squads were screaming to one another, horses rearing and plunging dogs yelping, eager to be disburdened of their loads, while the fluttering of feathers and the gleam of barbaric ornaments added liveliness to the scene. The small children ran about amid the crowd, while many of the boys were scrambling among the overhanging rocks and standing with their little bows in their hands, looking down upon a restless throng. In contrast with the general confusion, a circle of old men and warriors sat in the midst, smoking in profound indifference and tranquility. The disorder at length subsided. The horses were driven away to feet along the adjacent valley, and the camp assumed an air of listless repose. It was scarcely past noon. A vast white canopy of smoke from a burning forest to the eastward overhug the place and partially obscured the sun, yet the heat was almost insupportable. The lodges stood crowded together without order in the narrow space. Each was a perfect hot-house within which the lazy proprietor lay sleeping. The camp was as silent as death. Nothing stirred except now and then an old woman passing from lodge to lodge. The girls and young men sat together in groups under the pine trees upon the surrounding heights. The dogs lay panting on the ground, too lazy even to growl at the white man. At the entrance of the meadow there was a cold spring among the rocks, completely overshadowed by tall trees and dense undergrowth. In this cold and shady retreat a number of girls were assembled, sitting together on rocks and fallen logs, discussing the latest gossip of the village, or laughing in throwing water with their hands at the intruding manayasca. The minute seemed lengthened into hours. I lay for a long time under a tree, studying the ogolala tongue with the zealous instructions of my friend the panther. When we both tired of this, I went and lay down by the side of a deep, clear pool formed by the water of the spring. A shoal of little fishes of about a pin's length were playing in it, sporting together as it seemed very amicably. But on closer observation I saw that they were engaged in accountable warfare among themselves. Now and then a small one would fall a victim and immediately disappear down the maw of his voracious conqueror. Every moment, however, the tyrant of the pool, a monster about three inches long with staring goggle eyes, would slowly issue forth with quivering fins and tail from under the shelving bank. The small fry at this would suspend their hostilities and scatter in panic at the appearance of overwhelming force. Soft-hearted philanthropists thought I may sigh long for their peaceful millennium, for from minnows up to men life is an incessant battle. Evening approached at last, the tall mountaintops around were still gay and bright and sunshine, while our deep glen was completely shadowed. I left the camp and ascended a neighboring hill whose rocky summit commanded a wide view over the surrounding wilderness. The sun was still glaring through the stiff pines on the ridge of the western mountain. In a moment he was gone, and as the landscape rapidly darkened, I turned again toward the village. As I descended the hill, the howling of wolves and the barking of foxes came up out of the dim woods from far and near. The camp was glowing with a multitude of fires and alive with dusky naked figures whose tall shadows flitted among the surrounding crags. I found a circle of smokers seated in their usual place, that is, on the ground before the lodge of a certain warrior, who seemed to be generally known for his social qualities. I sat down to smoke a parting pipe with my savage friends. That day was the first of August, on which I had promised to meet Shaw at Fort Laramie. The fort was less than two days' journey distant, and that my friend did not suffer anxiety on my account, I resolved to push forward as rapidly as possible to the place of meeting. I went to look after the hailstorm, and having found him, I offered him a handful of hawksbells and a paper of verminian, on condition that he would guide me in the morning through the mountains within sight of Laramie Creek. The hailstorm ejaculated, how, and accepted the gift. Nothing more was set on either side, the matter was settled, and I lay down to sleep in Congratanga's lodge. Long before daylight, Raymond shook me by the shoulder. Everything is ready, he said. I went out. The morning was chill, damp, and dark, and the whole camp seemed to sleep. The hailstorm sat on horseback before the lodge, and my mayor Pauline and the mule which Raymond rode were picketed near it. We saddled and made our other arrangements for the journey, but before these were completed the camp began to stir, and the lodge coverings fluttered and rustled as the squaws pulled them down in preparation for departure. Just as the light began to appear, we left the ground, passing up through a narrow opening among the rocks which led eastward out of the meadow. Gaining the top of this passage, I turned round and sat looking back upon the camp, dimly visible in the gray light of the morning. All was alive with the bustle of preparation. I turned away half unwilling to take a final leave of my savage associates. We turned to the right, passing among the rocks and pine trees so dark that for a while we could scarcely see our way. The country in front was wild and broken, half hill, half plain, partly open and partly covered with woods of pine and oak. Barriers of lofty mountains encompassed it. The woods were fresh and cool in the early morning. The peaks of the mountains were wreathed with mist, and sluggish vapors were entangled among the forests upon their sides. At length the black pinnacle of the tallest mountain was tipped with gold by the rising sun. About that time the hail storm who rode in front gave a low exclamation. Some large animal leaped up from among the bushes, and an elk, as I thought, his horns thrown back over his neck darted past us across the open space and bounded like a mad thing away among the adjoining pines. Raymond was soon out of his saddle, but before he could fire the animal was full 200 yards distant. The ball struck its mark, though much too low for mortal effect. The elk, however, wheeled in its flight and ran at full speed among the trees nearly at right angles to his former course. I fired and broke his shoulder. Still he moved on, limping down into the neighboring woody hollow, with the young Indian followed and killed him. When we reached the spot we discovered him to be no elk, but a black-tailed deer, an animal nearly twice the size of the common deer and quite unknown to the east. We began to cut him up. The reports of the rifles had reached the ears of the Indians, and before our task was finished several of them came to the spot. Leaving the hide of the deer to the hail storm we hung as much of the meat as we wanted behind our saddles, left the rest to the Indians, and resumed our journey. Meanwhile, the village was on its way and had gone so far that to get in advance of it was impossible. Before we directed our course so as to strike its line of march at the nearest point. In a short time, through the dark trunks of the pines, we could see the figures of the Indians as they passed. Once more we were among them. They were moving with even more than their usual precipitation, crowded close together in a narrow pass between rocks and old pine trees. We were on the eastern descent of the mountain, and soon came to a rough and difficult defile leading down a very steep declivity. The whole swarm poured down together, filling the rocky passage way like some turbulent mountain stream. The mountains before us were on fire, and had been so for weeks. The view in front was obscured by a vast dim sea of smoke and vapor, while in either hand the tall cliffs, bearing aloft their crest of pines, thrust their heads boldly through it, and the sharp pinnacles and broken ridges of the mountains beyond them were faintly traceable as through a veil. The scene in itself was most grand and imposing, but with the savage multitude, the armed warriors, the naked children, the galey apparel girls pouring impetuously down the heights, it would have formed a noble subject for a painter, and only the pen of a scot could have done it justice in description. We passed over a burnt tract where the ground was hot beneath the horse's feet, and between the blazing sides of two mountains. Before long we had descended to a softer region where we found a succession of little valleys watered by a stream, along the borders of which grew abundance of wild gooseberries and currets, and the children and many of the men straggled from the line of march to gather them as we passed along. Descending still farther the view changed rapidly. The burning mountains were behind us, and through the open valleys in front we could see the ocean-like prairies stretching beyond the site. After passing through a line of trees that skirted the brook, the Indians filed out upon the plains. I was thirsty and knelt down with a little stream to drink. As I mounted again I very carelessly left my rifle among the grass, and my thoughts being otherwise absorbed I rode for some distance before discovering its absence. As the reader may conceive I lost no time in turning about and galloping back in search of it. Passing the line of Indians I watched every warrior as he rode by me at a canter, and at length discovered my rifle in the hands of one of them, who on my approaching to claim it immediately gave it up. Having no other means of acknowledging the obligation, I took off one of my spurs and gave it to him. He was greatly delighted, looking upon it as a distinguished mark of favor, and immediately held out his foot for me to buckle it on. As soon as I had done so, he struck it with force into the side of his horse who gave a violent leap. The Indian laughed and spurred harder than before. At this the horse shot away like an arrow amid the screams and laughter of the squaws, and the ejaculations of the men who exclaimed, Washdye, good, at the potent effect of my gift. The Indian had no saddle and nothing in place of a bridle except a leather string tied round the horse's jaw. The animal was of course wholly uncontrollable, and stretched away at full speed over the prairie till he and his rider vanished behind a distant swell. I never saw the man again, but I presume no harm came to him, and Indian on horseback has more lives than a cat. The village encamped on a scorching prairie close to the foot of the mountains. The heat was most intense and penetrating. The coverings of the lodges were raised a foot or more from the ground in order to procure some circulation of air, and Reynal thought proper to lay aside his trappers' dress of buck skin and assume the very scanty costume of an Indian. Thus elegantly attired, he stretched himself in his lodge on a buffalo robe, alternately cursing the heat and puffing at the pipe which he and I passed between us. There was present also a select circle of Indian friends and relatives. A small-boiled puppy was served up as a parting feast, to which was added by way of dessert a wooden bowl of gooseberries from the mountains. Look there, said Reynal, pointing out of the opening of his lodge. Do you see that line of buttes about fifteen miles off? Well, now, do you see that farthest one with the white speck on the face of it? Do you think you ever saw it before? It looks to me, said I, like the hill that we were camped under when we were on Laramie Creek six or eight weeks ago. You've hid it, answered Reynal. Go and bring in the animals, Raymond, said I. They'll camp there tonight and start for the fort in the morning. The mare and the mule were soon before the lodge. We saddled them, and in the meantime a number of Indians collected about us. The virtues of Pauline, my strong fleet and hearty little mare, were well known in camp, and several of the visitors were mounted upon good horses which they had brought me as presents. I promptly declined their offers, since accepting them would have involved the necessity of transferring poor Pauline into their barbarous hands. We took leave of Reynal, but not of the Indians who are accustomed to dispense with such superfluous ceremonies. Leaving the camp, we rode straight over the prairie toward the white-faced bluff whose pale ridges swelled gently against the horizon like a cloud. An Indian went with us, whose name I forget, though the ugliness of his face and the ghastly width of his mouth dwelled vividly in my recollection. The antelope were numerous, but we did not heed them. We rode directly toward our destination over the arid plains and barren hills, until, late in the afternoon, half spent with heat, thirst, and fatigue. We saw a gladdening sight, the long line of trees and the deep gulf that marked the course of Laramie Creek. Passing through the growth of huge, dilapidated old cottonwood trees that bordered the creek, we rode across to the other side. The rapid and foaming waters were filled with fish playing and splashing in the shallows. As we gained the farther bank, our horses turned eagerly to drink, and we, kneeling on the sand, followed their example. We had not gone far before the scene began to grow familiar. We were getting near home, Raymond, said I. There stood the big tree under which we had camped so long. There were the white cliffs that used to look down upon our tent when it stood at the bend of the creek. There was the meadow in which our horses had grazed for weeks and little farther on the prairie dog village where I had beguiled many a languid hour in persecuting the unfortunate inhabitants. We're going to catch it now, said Raymond, turning his broad vacant face up toward the sky. In truth the landscape, the cliffs and the meadow, the stream and the groves were darkening fast. Black masses of cloud were swelling up in the south, and the thunder was growling ominously. We will camp here, I said, pointing to a dense grove of trees lower down the stream. Raymond and I turned toward it, but the Indians stopped and called earnestly after us. When we demanded what was the matter, he said that the ghosts of two warriors were always among those trees, and that if we slept there they would scream and throw stones at us all night, and perhaps steal our horses before morning. Thinking it as well to humor him, we left behind us the haunt of these extraordinary ghosts and passed on toward chug-water, riding at full gallop, for the big drops began to pat her down. Soon we came inside of the poplar saplings that grew about the mouth of the little stream. We leaped to the ground, threw off our saddles, turned our horses loose, and, drawing our knives, began to slash among the bushes to cut twigs and branches for making a shelter against the rain. Bending down the taller saplings as they grew, we piled the young shoots upon them, and thus made a convenient pent-house, but all our labor was useless. The storm scarcely touched us. Half a mile on our right the rain was pouring down like a cataract and the thunder roared over the prairie like a battery of cannon, while we, by good fortune, received only a few heavy drops from the skirt of the passing cloud. The weather cleared, and the sun set gloriously. Sitting close under our leafy canopy we proceeded to discuss a substantial meal of wasna, which way a wash-tie had given me. The Indian had brought with him his pipe and a bag of Shang-Sasha, so before lying down to sleep we sat for some time smoking together. Previously, however, our wide-mouthed friend had taken the precaution of carefully examining the neighborhood. He reported that eight men, counting them on his fingers, had been encamped there not long before. Bessonette, Paul Dorion, Antoine LaRouge, Richardson, and four others whose names he could not tell. All this proved strictly correct. By what instinct he had arrived at such accurate conclusions I am utterly at a loss to divine. It was still quite dark when I awoke and called Raymond. The Indian was already gone, having chosen to go on before us to the fort. Sitting out after him we rode for some time in complete darkness, and when the sun at length rose, glowing like a fiery ball of copper, we were ten miles distant from the fort. At length from the broken summit of a tall sandy bluff we could see Fort Laramie miles before us, standing by the side of the stream like a little gray speck in the midst of the bounding desolation, I stopped my horse and sat for a moment looking down upon it. It seemed to me the very center of comfort and civilization. We were not long in approaching it, for we rode at speed the greater part of the way. Laramie Creek still intervened between us and the friendly walls. Entering the water at the point where we had struck upon the bank, we raised our feet to the saddle behind us, and thus kneeling as it were on horseback passed dry shot through the swift current. As we rode up the bank, a number of men appeared in the gateway. Three of them came forward to meet us. In a moment I distinguished Shaw, Henry Chattalon followed with his face of manly simplicity and frankness, and Deloria came last with a broad grin of welcome. The meeting was not on either side one of mere ceremony, for my own part the change was a most agreeable one, from the society of savages and men little better than savages, to that of my gallant and high-minded companion and our noble-hearted guide. My appearance was equally gratifying to Shaw, who was beginning to entertain some very uncomfortable surmises concerning me. Bordeaux greeted me very cordially and shouted to the cook. This functionary was a new acquisition, having lately come from Fort Pierre with the trading wagons. Whatever skill he might have boasted, he had not the most promising materials to exercise it upon. He set before me, however, a breakfast of biscuit, coffee, and salt-pork. It seemed like a new phase of existence to be seated once more on a bench, with a knife and fork, a plate and tea cup, and something resembling a table before me. The coffee seemed delicious, and the bread was a most welcome novelty, since for three weeks I had eaten scarcely anything but meat, and that, for the most part, without salt. The meal also had the relish of good company, for opposite to me sat Shaw in elegant disabil. If one is anxious thoroughly to appreciate the value of a congenial companion, he has only to spend a few weeks by himself in an Ogallala village. And if he can contrive to add to his seclusion a debilitating and somewhat critical illness, his perceptions upon this subject will be rendered considerably more vivid. Shaw had been upward of two weeks at the fort. I found him established in his old quarters a large apartment usually occupied by the absent bourgeois. In one corner was a soft and luxuriant pile of excellent buffalo robes, and here I lay down. Shaw brought me three books. Here, said he, is your Shakespeare and Byron, and here is the Old Testament, which has as much poetry in it as the other two put together. I chose the worst of the three, and for the greater part of that day lay on the buffalo robes fairly reveling in the creations of that resplendant genius which has achieved no more signal triumph than that of half beguiling us to forget the pitiful and unmanly character of its possessor. End of CHAPTER XXI THE LONELY JOURNEY On the day of my arrival at Fort Laramie, Shaw and I were lounging on two buffalo robes in the large apartment, hospitably assigned to us. Henry Châtalon also was present, busy about the harness and weapons, which had been brought into the room, and two or three Indians were crouching on the floor, eyeing us with their fixed unwavering gaze. I have been well off here, said Shaw, in all respects, but one. There is no good shangsa shot to be had for love or money. I gave him a small leather bag containing some of excellent quality which I had brought from the Black Hills. Now Henry said he, hand me Papa's chopping board or give it to that Indian and let him cut the mixture. They understand it better than any white man. The Indian, without saying a word, mixed the bark and the tobacco in due proportions, filled the pipe and lighted it. This done my companion and I proceeded to deliberate on our future course of proceeding. First, however, Shaw acquainted me with some incidents which had occurred at the Fort during my absence. About a week previous four men had arrived from beyond the mountains, Soublette, Redick and two others. Just before reaching the Fort they had met a large party of Indians, chiefly young men. All of them belonged to the village of our old friend, Smok, who, with his whole band of adherents, professed the greatest friendship for the whites. The travelers therefore approached and began to converse without the least suspicion. They, however, their bridles were violently seized and they were ordered to dismount. Instead of complying, they struck their horses with full force and broke away from the Indians. As they galloped off they heard a yell behind them, mixed with a burst of derisive laughter and the reports of several guns. None of them were hurt, though Redick's bridle reign was cut by a bullet within an inch of his hand. After this taste of Indian hostility they felt for the moment no disposition to encounter further risks. They intended to pursue the route southward along the foot of the mountains to Bent's Fort, and as our plans coincided with theirs they proposed to join forces. Finding, however, that I did not return, they grew impatient of inaction, forgot their late escape, and set out without us, promising to wait our arrival at Bent's Fort. From thence we were to make the long journey to the settlements in company, as the path was not a little dangerous, being infested by hostile ponies and comanches. We expected on reaching Bent's Fort to find there still another reinforcement. A young Kentuckian of the true Kentucky blood, generous, impetuous, and a gentleman with all, had come out to the mountains with Russell's party of California emigrants. One of his chief objects, as he gave out, was to kill an Indian, an exploit which he afterwards succeeded in achieving, much to the jeopardy of ourselves and others who had to pass through the country of the dead ponies and raged relatives. Having become disgusted with his emigrant associates, he left them, and had some time before set out with a party of companions for the head of the Arkansas. He sent us previously a letter intimating that he would wait until we arrived at Bent's Fort and accompany us thence to the settlements. When, however, he came to the fort he found there a party of forty men about to make the home or journey. He wisely preferred to avail himself of so strong an escort. Mr. Soublette and his companions also set out, in order to overtake this company, so that on reaching Bent's Fort some six weeks after, we found ourselves deserted by our allies and thrown once more upon our own resources. But I am anticipating. When before leaving the settlement we had made inquiries concerning this part of the country of General Carney, Mr. McKenzie, Captain Wyeth, and others well acquainted with it, they had all advised us by no means to attempt this southward journey with fewer than fifteen or twenty men. The danger consists in the chance of encountering Indian war parties. Sometimes throughout the whole length of the journey, a distance of three hundred fifty miles, one does not meet a single human being. Frequently, however, the route is beset by Arapahos and other unfriendly tribes, in which case the scalp of the adventurer is an imminent peril. As to the escort of fifteen or twenty men, such a force of whites could at that time scarcely be collected by the whole country, and had the case been otherwise the expense of securing them together with the necessary number of horses would have been extremely heavy. We had resolved, however, upon pursuing this southward course. There were indeed two other routes from Fort Laramie, but both of these were less interesting, and neither was free from danger. Being unable, therefore, to procure the fifteen or twenty men recommended, we determined to set out with those we had already in our employ, Henry Shatalon, DeLaurier, and Raymond. The men themselves made no objection, nor would they have made any had the journey been more dangerous, for Henry was without fear, and the other two without thought. DeLaurier and I were much better fitted for this mode of traveling than we had been on betaking ourselves to the prairies for the first time a few months before. The dally routine had ceased to be a novelty. All the details of the journey in the camp had become familiar to us. We had seen life under a new aspect. The human biped had been reduced to his primitive condition. We had lived without law to protect, a roof to shelter, or garment of cloth to cover us. One of us, at least, had been without bread and without salt to season his food. Our idea of what is indispensable to human existence and enjoyment had been wonderfully curtailed, and a horse, a rifle, and a knife seemed to make up the whole of life's necessaries. For these, once obtained, together with the skill to use them, all else that is essential would follow in their train, and a host of luxuries besides. One other lesson our short prairie experience had taught us, that of profound contentment in the present and utter contempt for what the future might bring forth. These principles established we prepared to leave Fort Laramie. On the fourth day of August, early in the afternoon, we bade a final adieu to its hospitable gateway. Again Shaw and I were riding side by side on the prairie. For the first fifty miles we had companions with us, troke a little trapper, and Rueville, a nondescript in the employ of the fur company, who were going to join the trader Bissonnette at his encampment near the head of Horse Creek. We rode only six or eight miles that afternoon before we came to a little brook traversing the barren prairie. All along its course grew copes of young wild cherry trees, loaded with ripe fruit, and almost concealing the gliding thread of water with their dense growth, while on each side rose swells of rich green grass. Here we encamped, and being much too indolent to pitch our tent, we flung our saddles on the ground, spread a pair of buffalo robes, lay down upon them, and began to smoke. Meanwhile, DeLaurier busied himself with his hissing frying-pan, and Raymond stood guard over the band of grazing horses. DeLaurier had an active assistant in Rueville who professed great skill in the culinary art, and seizing upon a fork began to lend his zealous aid in making ready supper. Indeed according to his own belief, Rueville was a man of universal knowledge, and he lost no opportunity to display his manifold accomplishments. He had been a circus rider at St. Louis, and once he rode around Fort Laramie on his head to the utter bewilderment of all the Indians. He was also noted as the wit of the fort, and as he had considerable humor and abundant vivacity he contributed more that night to the liveliness of the camp than all the rest of the party put together. At one instant he would be kneeling by DeLaurier, instructing him in the true method of frying antelope steaks. Then he would come and seat himself at our side, dilating upon the orthodox fashion of braiding up a horse's tail, telling apocryphal stories how he had killed a buffalo bull with a knife having first cut off his tail when at full speed, or relating whimsical anecdotes of the bourgeois papa. At last he snatched up a volume of Shakespeare that was lying on the grass, and halted and stumbled through a line or two to prove that he could read. He went gambling about the camp, chattering like some frolic some ape, and whatever he was doing at one moment the presumption was a sure one that he would not be doing at the next. His companion Trocci sat silently on the grass, not speaking a word, but keeping a vigilant eye on a very ugly little Utah squaw of whom he was extremely jealous. On the next day we traveled farther, crossing the wide sterile basin called Gauche's Hole. Toward night we became involved among deep ravines, and being also unable to find water our journey was protracted to a very late hour. On the next morning we had to pass a long line of bluffs, whose raw sides wrought upon by rains and storms were of a ghastly whiteness most oppressive to the sight. As we ascended a gap in these hills the way was marked by huge footprints like those of a human giant. They were the track of the grizzly bear, and on the previous day also we had seen abundance of them along the dry channels of the streams we had passed. Immediately after this we were crossing a barren plain, riding in long and gentle undulations to the horizon. Though the sun was bright there was a light haze in the atmosphere, the distant hills assumed strange distorted forms, and the edge of the horizon was continually changing its aspect. Shaw and I were riding together, and Henry Shatalon was alone a few rides before us. He stopped his horse suddenly, and turning round with the peculiar eager and earnest expression which he always wore when excited, he called to us to come forward. We galloped to his side. Henry pointed toward a black speck on the gray swell of the prairie, apparently about a mile off. "'It must be a bear,' said he. "'Come now, we shall all have some sport. Better fun to fight him than to fight an old buffalo bull, grizzly bear so strong and smart.'" So we all galloped forward together, prepared for a hard fight. For these bears, though clumsy in appearance and extremely large, are incredibly fierce and active. The swell of the prairie concealed the black object from our view. Immediately after it appeared again. But now it seemed quite near to us, and as we looked at it in astonishment, it suddenly separated into two parts, each of which took wing and flew away. We stopped our horses and looked round at Henry, whose face exhibited a curious mixture of mirth and mortification. His hawk's eye had been so completely deceived by the peculiar atmosphere that he had mistaken two large crows at the distance of fifty rods for a grizzly bear a mile off. To the journey's end Henry never heard the last of the grizzly bear with wings. In the afternoon we came to the foot of a considerable hill. As we ascended it, Ruviel began to ask questions concerning our conditions and prospects at home, and Shaw was edifying him with a minute account of an imaginary wife and child to which he listened with implicit faith. Reaching the top of the hill we saw the windings of Horst Creek on the plains below us, and a little on the left we could distinguish the camp of Bissonnette among the trees and copes along the course of the stream. Ruviel's face assumed just then a most ludicrously blank expression. We inquired what was the matter, when it appeared that Bissonnette had sent him from this place to Fort Laramie with the sole object of bringing back a supply of tobacco. Our rattle-brained friend, from the time of his reaching the fort up to the present moment, had entirely forgotten the object of his journey, and had ridden a dangerous hundred miles for nothing. Descending to Horst Creek we forted it, and on the opposite bank a solitary Indian sat on horseback under a tree. He said nothing, but turned and led the way toward the camp. Bissonnette had made choice of an admirable position. The stream, with its thick growth of trees, enclosed on three sides a wide green meadow, where about forty Dakota lodges were pitched in a circle, and beyond them half a dozen lodges of the friendly Cheyenne. Bissonnette himself lived in the Indian manner. Riding up to his lodge we found him seated at the head of it, surrounded by various appliances of comfort not common on the prairie. His squaw was near him, and rosy children were scrambling about in printed calico gowns. Paul Dorion also, with his leathery face and old white capote, was seated in the lodge, together with Antoine Lerouge, a half-breed paunee, Sibyl, a trader, and several other white men. It will do you no harm, said Bissonnette, to stay here with us for a day or two before you start for the Pueblo. We accepted the invitation and pitched our tent on a rising ground above the camp and close to the edge of the trees. Bissonnette soon invited us to a feast, and we suffered abundance of the same sort of attention from his Indian associates. The reader may possibly recollect that when I joined the Indian village beyond the Black Hills, I found that a few families were absent, having declined to pass the mountains along with the rest. The Indians and Bissonnette's camp consisted of these very families, and many of them came to me that evening to inquire after their relatives and friends. They were not a little mortified to learn that while they, from their own timidity and indolence, were almost in a starving condition, the rest of the village had provided their lodges for the next season, laid in a great stock of provisions, and were living in abundance and luxury. Bissonnette's companions had been sustaining themselves for some time on wild cherries, which the squaws pounded up, and spread on buffalo robes to dry in the sun. They were then eaten without further preparation, or used as an ingredient in various delectable compounds. On the next day the camp was in commotion with a new arrival. A single Indian had come with his family the whole way from the Arkansas. As he passed among the lodges, he put on an expression of unusual dignity and importance, and gave out that he had brought great news to tell the whites. Soon after the squaws had erected his lodge, he sent his little son to invite all the white men and all the most distinguished Indians to a feast. The guests arrived and sat wedged together shoulder to shoulder within the hot and suffocating lodge. The stabber, for that was our entertainer's name, had killed an old buffalo bull on his way. This veteran's boiled tripe, tougher than leather, formed the main item of the repast. For the rest it consisted of wild cherries and grease spoiled together in a large copper kettle. The feast was distributed, and for a moment all was silent, strenuous exertion. Then each guest, with one or two exceptions, however, turned his wooden dish bottom upward to prove that he had done full justice to his entertainer's hospitality. The stabber next produced his chopping board, on which he prepared the mixture for smoking and filled several pipes which circulated among the company. This done he seated himself upright on his couch and began with much gesticulation to tell his story. I will not repeat his childish jargon. It was so entangled, like the greater part of an Indian story, with absurd and contradictory details, that it was almost impossible to disengage from it a single particle of truth. All that we could gather was the following. He had been on the Arkansas, and there he had seen six great war parties of whites. He had never believed before that the whole world contained half so many white men. They all had large horses, long knives, and short rifles, and some of them were attired alike in the most splendid war dresses he had ever seen. From this account it was clear that bodies of dragoons, and perhaps also a volunteer cavalry, had been passing up the Arkansas. The stabber had also seen a great many of the white lodges of the manyasca, drawn by their longhorn buffalo. These could be nothing else and covered ox wagons, used no doubt for transporting stores for the troops. Soon after seeing this, our host had met an Indian who had lately come from among the Comanches. The latter had told him that all the Mexicans had gone out to a great buffalo hunt, that the Americans had hid themselves in a ravine. When the Mexicans had shot away all their arrows, the Americans had fired their guns, raised their war whoop, rushed out, and killed them all. We could only infer from this that war had been declared with Mexico, and a battle fought in which the Americans were victorious. When some weeks after we arrived at the Pueblo, we heard of General Carney's march up the Arkansas, and of General Teller's victories at Matamoros. As the sun was setting that evening, a great crowd gathered on the plain by the side of our tent to try the speed of their horses. These were of every shape, size, and color. Some came from California, some from the States, some from among the mountains, and some from the wild bands of the prairie. They were of every hue, white, black, red, and gray, or mottled and clouded with a strange variety of colors. They all had a wild and startled look, very different from the state and sober aspect of a well-bred city-steed. Those most noted for swiftness and spirit were decorated with eagle feathers dangling from their mains and tails. Fifty or sixty Dakotas were present, wrapped from head to foot in their heavy robes of white and hide. There were also a considerable number of the Cheyenne, many of whom were gaudy Mexican ponchos swayed around their shoulders but leaving the right-arm bear. Mingled among the crowd of Indians were a number of Canadians, chiefly in the employ of Bissonnette, men whose home is in the wilderness and who love the campfire better than the domestic hearth. They are contented and happy in the midst of hardship, privation, and danger. Their cheerfulness and gaiety is irrepressible, and no people on earth understand better how to daft the world aside and bid it pass. Besides these were two or three half-breeds, a race of rather extraordinary composition being, according to the common saying, half Indian, half white man, and half devil. Antoine Le Rouge was the most conspicuous among them, with his loose pantaloons and his fluttering calico skirt. A handkerchief was bound round his head to confine his black, snakey hair and his small eyes twinkled beneath it with a mischievous luster. He had a fine, cream-colored horse whose speed he must needs try along with the rest, so he threw off the rude high-peaked saddle and substituting a piece of buffalo robe leaped lightly into his seat. The space was cleared, the word was given, and he and his Indian rival darted out like lightning from among the crowd, each stretching forward over his horse's neck and plying his heavy Indian whip with might and mane. A moment and both were lost in the gloom, but Antoine soon came riding back victorious, exultingly patting the neck of his quivering and panting horse. About midnight, as I lay asleep, wrapped in a buffalo robe on the ground by the side of our cart, Raymond came up and woke me. Something, he said, was going forward, which I would like to see. Looking down into camp, I saw, on the farther side of it, a great number of Indians gathered around a fire, the bright glare of which made them visible through the thick darkness, while from the midst of them proceeded a loud, measured chant which would have killed Paganini outright, broken occasionally by a burst of sharp yells. I gathered the robe around me, for the night was cold, and walked down to the spot. The dark throng of Indians was so dense that they almost intercepted the light of the flame. As I was pushing among them with but little ceremony, a chief interposed himself, and I was given to understand that a white man must not approach the scene of their solemnities too closely. By passing round to the other side where there was a little opening in the crowd, I could see clearly what was going forward without intruding my unhallowed presence into the inner circle. The society of the strong hearts were engaged in one of their dances. The strong hearts are a war-like association, comprising men of both the Dakota and Cheyenne nations, and entirely composed, or supposed to be so, of young braves of the highest metal. Its fundamental principle is the admirable one of never retreating from any enterprise once commenced. All these Indian associations have a tutelary spirit. That of the strong hearts is embodied in the fox, an animal which a white man would hardly have selected for a similar purpose, though his subtle and cautious character agrees well enough with an Indian's notions of what is honorable in warfare. The dancers were circling round and round the fire. Each figure brightly illumined at one moment by the yellow light, and at the next drawn in blackest shadow as it passed between the flame and the spectator. They would imitate with the most ludicrous exactness the motions and the voice of their sly patron, the fox. Then a startling yell would be given. Many other warriors would leap into the ring, and with faces upturned toward the starless sky they would all stamp and whoop and brandish their weapons like so many frantic devils. Until the next afternoon we were still remaining with Bissonette. My companion and I, with our three attendants, then left his cap for the Pueblo, a distance of three hundred miles, and we supposed the journey would occupy about a fortnight. During this time we all earnestly hoped that we might not meet a single human being, for should we encounter any, they would in all probability be enemies, ferocious robbers and murderers, in whose eyes our rifles would be our only passports. For the first two days nothing worth mentioning took place. On the third morning, however, an untoward incident occurred. We were encamped by the side of a little brook in an extensive hollow of the plain. Deloria was up long before daylight, and before he began to prepare breakfast he turned loose all the horses, as in duty bound. There was a cold mist clinging close to the ground, and by the time the rest of us were awake the animals were invisible. It was only after a long and anxious search that we could discover by their tracks the direction they had taken. They had all set off for Fort Laramie following the guidance of a mutinous old mule, and though many of them were hobbled they had driven three miles before they could be overtaken and driven back. For the following two or three days we were passing over an arid desert. The only vegetation was a few tufts of short grass dried and shriveled by the heat. There was an abundance of strange insects and reptiles, huge crickets black and bottle green, and wingless grasshoppers in the most extravagant dimensions were tumbling about our horses' feet, and lizards without numbers were darting like lightning among the tufts of grass. The most curious animal, however, was that commonly called the horned frog. I caught one of them and consigned him to the care of Deloria, who tied him up in a moccasin. About a month after this I examined the prisoner's condition, and finding him still lively and active, I provided him with a cage of buffalo hide which was hung up in the cart. In this manner he arrived safely at the settlements. From thence he traveled the whole way to Boston, packed closely in a trunk, being regaled with fresh air regularly every night. When he reached his destination he was deposited under a glass case where he sat for some months in great tranquility and composure, alternately dilating and contracting his white throat to the admiration of his visitors. At length one morning, about the middle of winter, he gave up the ghost. His death was attributed to starvation, a very probable conclusion, since for six months he had taken no food whatever, though the sympathy of his juvenile admirers had tempted his palate with a great variety of delicacies. We found also animals of a somewhat larger growth. The number of prairie dogs was absolutely astounding. Frequently the hard and dry prairie would be thickly covered for many miles together with the little mounds which they make around the mouth of their burrows, and small squeaking voices yelping at us as we passed along. The noses of the inhabitants would be just visible at the mouth of their holes, but no sooner was their curiosity satisfied than they would instantly vanish. Some of the bolder dogs, though in fact they are no dogs at all but little marmots rather smaller than a rabbit, would sit yelping at us on top of their mounds, jerking their tails emphatically with every shrill cry they uttered. As the danger grew nearer they would wheel about, toss their heels into the air, and dive in a twinkling down into their burrows. Towards sunset, and especially if rain were threatening, the whole community would make their appearance above ground. We would see them gathered in large knots around the burrow of some favorite citizen. There they would all sit erect, their tails spread out on the ground, and their paws hanging down before their white breasts, chattering and squeaking with the utmost vivacity upon some topic of common interest, while the proprietor of the burrow with his head just visible on the top of his mound would sit looking down with a complacent countenance on the enjoyment of his guests. Meanwhile others would be running about from burrow to burrow, as if on some errand of the last importance to their subterranean commonwealth. The snakes were apparently the prairie dog's worst enemies, at least I think too well of the latter to suppose that they associate unfriendly terms with these slimy intruders, who may be seen at all times basking among their holes, into which they always retreat when disturbed. Small owls with wise and grave countenances also make their abode with the prairie dogs, though on what terms they live together I could never ascertain. The manners and customs, the political and domestic economy of these little marmots, is worthy of closer attention than one is able to give when pushing by forced marches through their country, with his thoughts engrossed by objects of greater moment. On the fifth day after leaving Bisonet's camp, we saw late in the afternoon what we supposed to be a considerable stream, but on our approaching it we found to our mortification nothing but a dry bed of sand into which all the water had sunk and disappeared. We separated, some riding in one direction and some in another along its course. Still we found no traces of water, not even so much as a wet spot in the sand. The old cottonwood trees that grew along the bank, lamentably abused by lightning and tempest, were withering with the drought, and on the dead limbs at the summit of the tallest half a dozen crows were horsely-cawing like birds of evil omen as they were. We had no alternative but to keep on. There was no water nearer than the south fork of the plat, about ten miles distant. We moved forward, angry and silent, over a desert as flat as the outspread ocean. The sky had been obscured since the morning by thin mists and vapors, but now vast piles of clouds were gathered together in the west. They rose to a great height above the horizon, and looking up toward them I distinguished one mass darker than the rest in a peculiar conical form. I happened to look again and still could see it as before. At some moments it was dimly seen, at others its outline was sharp and distinct, but while the clouds around it were shifting, changing and dissolving away, it still towered aloft in the midst of them, fixed and immovable. It must thought I be the summit of a mountain, and yet its height staggered me. My conclusion was right, however. It was Long's Peak, once believed to be one of the highest of the Rocky Mountain chain, though more recent discoveries have proved the contrary. The thickening gloom soon hit it from view when we never saw it again, for on the following day and for some time after, the air was so full of mist that the view of distant objects was entirely intercepted. It grew very late. Turning from our direct course, we made for the river at its nearest point, though in the utter darkness it was not easy to direct our way with much precision. Raymond rode on one side and Henry on the other. We could hear each of them shouting that he had come upon a deep ravine. We steered at random between Silla and Caribdis, and soon after became, as it seemed, inextricably involved with deep chasms all around us, while the darkness was such that we could not see a rod in any direction. We partially extricated ourselves by scrambling cart and all through a shallow ravine. We came next to a steep descent, down which we plunged without well knowing what was at the bottom. There was a great crackling of sticks and dry twigs. Over our heads were certain large shadowy objects, and in front something like the faint gleaming of a dark sheet of water. Raymond ran his horse against a tree. Henry lighted, and, feeling on the ground, declared that there was grass enough for the horses. Before taking off his saddle, each man led his own horses down to the water in the best way he could. Then, picketing two or three of the evil disposed, we turned the rest loose and laid down among the dry sticks to sleep. In the morning we found ourselves close to the South Fork of the Platte on a spot surrounded by bushes and ranked grass. Compensating ourselves with a hearty breakfast for the ill fare of the previous night, we set forward again on our journey. When only two or three rods from the camp, I saw Shaw stop his mule, level his gun, and, after a long aim, fire at some object in the grass. Deloria next jumped forward and began to dance about, belaboring the unseen enemy with a whip. Then he stooped down and drew out of the grass by the neck an enormous rattle snake with his head completely shattered by Shaw's bullet. As Deloria held him out at arm's length with an exulting grin, his tail, which kept slowly writhing about, almost touched the ground, and the body in the largest part was as thick as a stout man's arm. He had fourteen rattles, but the end of his tail was blunted as if he could once have boasted of many more. From this time till we reached the Pueblo, we killed at least four or five of these snakes every day as they lay coiled and rattling on the hot sand. Shaw was the St. Patrick LaParty, and whenever he or anyone else killed a snake, he always pulled off his tail and stored it away in his bullet pouch, which was soon crammed with an edifying collection of rattles, great and small. Deloria with his whip also came in for a share of the praise. A day or two after this, he triumphantly produced a small snake about a span and a half long with one infant rattle at the end of his tail. We forded the South Fork of the Platte. On its farther bank were the traces of a very large camp of Arapahos. The ashes of some three hundred fires were visible among the scattered trees, together with the remains of sweating lodges and all the other appurtenances of a permanent camp. The place, however, had been for some months deserted. A few miles farther on, we found more recent signs of Indians, the trail of two or three lodges which had evidently passed the day before, where every footprint was perfectly distinct in the dry, dusty soil. We noticed in particular the track of one moccasin upon the sole of which its economical proprietor had placed a large patch. These signs gave us but little uneasiness as the number of the warriors scarcely exceeded that of our own party. At noon we rested under the walls of a large fort built in these solitudes some years since by Monsieur Saint-Vrains, who is now abandoned and fast falling into ruin. The walls of unbaked bricks were cracked from top to bottom. Our horses recoiled in terror from the neglected entrance, where the heavy gates were torn from their hinges and flung down. The area was overgrown with weeds and the long ranges of apartments once occupied by the motley concourse of traders, Canadians, and squaws were now miserably dilapidated. Twelve miles further on, near the spot where we had camped, were the remains of still another fort, standing in melancholy desertion and neglect. Early on the following morning we made a startling discovery. We passed close by a large deserted encampment of Arapahos. There were about fifty fires still smoldering on the ground, and it was evident from numerous signs that the Indians must have left the place within two hours of our reaching it. Their trail crossed our own at right angles and led in the direction of a line of hills half a mile on our left. There were women and children in the party, which would have greatly diminished the danger of encountering them. Henry Shatalon examined the encampment and the trail with a very professional and business-like air. Supposing we had met them, Henry, said I. Why, said he, we hold out our hands to them and give them all we've got. They take away everything, and then I believe they know kill us. Perhaps, added he, looking up with a quiet, unchanged face, perhaps we know let them rob us. Maybe before they come near we have a chance to get into a ravine or under the bank of the river. Then you know we fight them. About noon on that day we reached Cherry Creek. Here was a great abundance of wild cherries, plums, gooseberries, and currants. The stream, however, like most of the others which we passed, was dried up with the heat and we had to dig holes in the sand to find water for ourselves and our horses. Two days after we left the banks of the creek which we had been following for some time and began to cross the high dividing ridge which separates the waters of the plat from those of the Arkansas. The scenery was altogether changed. In place of the burning plains we were passing now through rough and savage glens and among hills crowned with a dreary growth of pines. We encamped among these solitudes on the night of the 16th of August. A tempest was threatening. The sun went down among volumes of jet-black cloud edged with a bloody red. But in spite of these portentous signs we neglected to put up the tent and being extremely fatigued, lay down on the ground and fell asleep. The storm broke about midnight and we erected the tent amid darkness and confusion. In the morning all was fair again and Pike's Peak, white with snow, was towering above the wilderness afar off. We pushed through an extensive tract of pine woods. Large black squirrels were leaping among the branches. From the farther edge of this forest we saw the prairie again hollowed out before us into a vast basin. And about a mile in front we could discern a little black speck moving upon its surface. It could be nothing but a buffalo. Henry primed his rifle afresh and galloped forward. To the left of the animal was a low rocky mound of which Henry availed himself in making his approach. After a short time we heard the faint report of the rifle. The bull mortally wounded from a distance of nearly 300 yards ran wildly round and round in a circle. Shaw and I then galloped forward and passing him as he ran, foaming with rage and pain, we discharged our pistols into his side. Once or twice he rushed furiously upon us but his strength was rapidly exhausted. Down he fell on his knees. For one instant he glared up at his enemies with burning eyes through his black tangled mane and then rolled over on his side. Though gaunt and thin he was larger and heavier than the largest ox. Foam and blood flew together from his nostrils as he lay bellowing and pawing the ground, tearing up grass and earth with his hoofs. His sides rose and fell like a vast pair of bellows. The blood spouting up in jets from the bullet holes. Suddenly his glaring eyes became like a lifeless jelly. He lay motionless on the ground. Henry stooped over him making an incision with his knife, pronounced the meat too rank and tough for use, so disappointed in our hopes of an addition to our stock of provisions, we rode away and left the carcass to the wolves. In the afternoon we saw the mountains rising like a gigantic wall at no great distance on our right. Desovage! Desovage! exclaimed the laurel, looking round with a frightened face and pointing with his whip toward the foot of the mountains. In fact, we could see at a distance a number of little black specks, like horsemen in rapid motion. Henry Châtalon with Shaw and myself galloped toward them to Reconoiter, when to our amusement we saw the supposed Arapahos resolved into the black tops of some pine trees which grew along a ravine. The summits of these pines, just visible above the verge of the prairie and seeming to move as we ourselves were advancing, looked exactly like a line of horsemen. We encamped among ravines and hollows through which a little brook was foaming angrily. Before sunrise in the morning the snow-covered mountains were beautifully tinged with a delicate rose color. A noble spectacle awaited us as we moved forward. Six or eight miles on our right Pikes Peak and his giant brethren rose at a level prairie as if springing from the bed of the ocean. From their summits down to the plain below they were involved in a mantle of clouds in restless motion as if urged by strong winds. For one instant some snowy peak towering in awful solitude would be disclosed to view. As the clouds broke along the mountain we could see the dreary forests, the tremendous precipices, the white patches of snow, the gulfs and chasms as black as night all revealed for an instant, and then disappearing from the view. One could not but recall the stanza of Child Harold. Morn dawns, and with it stern Albania's hills, dark Suley's rocks, and Pindus inland peak robed half and mist, bedoed with snowy rills, a raid in many a dun and purple streak arise, and as the clouds along them break disclosed the dwelling of the mountaineer. Here roams the wolf, the eagle wets his beak. Birds, beasts of prey, and wilder men appear, and gathering storms around convulse the closing year. Every line save one of this description was more than verified here. There were no dwellings of the mountaineer among these heights. Fear savages, restlessly wandering through summer and winter alone invade them. Their hand is against every man, and every man's hand against them. On the day after we had left the mountains at some distance. A black cloud descended upon them, and a tremendous explosion of thunder followed, reverberating among the precipices. In a few moments everything grew black and the rain poured down like a cataract. We got under an old cottonwood tree which stood by the side of a stream, and waited there till the rage of the torrent had passed. The clouds opened at the point where they first had gathered, and the whole sublime congregation of mountains was bathed at once in warm sunshine. They seemed more like some luxurious vision of eastern romance than like a reality of that wilderness. All were melted together into a soft, delicious blue as voluptuous as the sky of Naples or the transparent sea that washes the sunny cliffs of Capri. On the left the whole sky was still of an inky blackness, but two concentric rainbows stood in brilliant relief against it, while far in front the ragged clouds still streamed before the wind and the retreating thunder muttered angrily. Through that afternoon and the next morning we were passing down the banks of the stream called La Fontaine qui Boille from the boiling spring whose waters flow into it. When we stopped at noon we were within six or eight miles of the Pueblo. Setting out again we found by the fresh tracks that a horseman had just been out to reconnoiter us. He had circled half round the camp and then galloped back full speed for the Pueblo. What made him so shy of us we could not conceive. After an hour's ride we reached the edge of a hill from which a welcome sight greeted us. The Arkansas ran along the valley below among woods and groves and closely nestled in the midst of wide cornfields and green meadows where cattle were grazing rose the low mud walls of the Pueblo.