They Called To Mind, Also, A Long Catalogue Of
Foregone Presentiments And Predictions Made At Various Times By
The Delaware,
And, in their superstitious credulity, began to
consider him a veritable seer; without thinking how natural it
was to predict
Danger, and how likely to have the prediction
verified in the present instance, when various signs gave
evidence of a lurking foe.
The various bands of Captain Bonneville's company had now been
assembled for some time at the rendezvous; they had had their
fill of feasting, and frolicking, and all the species of wild and
often uncouth merrymaking, which invariably take place on these
occasions. Their horses, as well as themselves, had recovered
from past famine and fatigue, and were again fit for active
service; and an impatience began to manifest itself among the men
once more to take the field, and set off on some wandering
expedition.
At this juncture M. Cerre arrived at the rendezvous at the head
of a supply party, bringing goods and equipments from the States.
This active leader, it will be recollected, had embarked the year
previously in skin-boats on the Bighorn, freighted with the
year's collection of peltries. He had met with misfortune in the
course of his voyage: one of his frail barks being upset, and
part of the furs lost or damaged.
The arrival of the supplies gave the regular finish to the annual
revel. A grand outbreak of wild debauch ensued among the
mountaineers; drinking, dancing, swaggering, gambling,
quarrelling, and fighting. Alcohol, which, from its portable
qualities, containing the greatest quantity of fiery spirit in
the smallest compass, is the only liquor carried across the
mountains, is the inflammatory beverage at these carousals, and
is dealt out to the trappers at four dollars a pint. When
inflamed by this fiery beverage, they cut all kinds of mad pranks
and gambols, and sometimes burn all their clothes in their
drunken bravadoes. A camp, recovering from one of these riotous
revels, presents a seriocomic spectacle; black eyes, broken
heads, lack-lustre visages. Many of the trappers have squandered
in one drunken frolic the hard-earned wages of a year; some have
run in debt, and must toil on to pay for past pleasure. All are
sated with this deep draught of pleasure, and eager to commence
another trapping campaign; for hardship and hard work, spiced
with the stimulants of wild adventures, and topped off with an
annual frantic carousal, is the lot of the restless trapper.
The captain now made his arrangements for the current year.
Cerre and Walker, with a number of men who had been to
California, were to proceed to St. Louis with the packages of
furs collected during the past year. Another party, headed by a
leader named Montero, was to proceed to the Crow country, trap
upon its various streams, and among the Black Hills, and thence
to proceed to the Arkansas, where he was to go into winter
quarters.
The captain marked out for himself a widely different course.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 183 of 230
Words from 94242 to 94745
of 118673
