Never did rival lawyers, after a wrangle at the
bar, meet with more social good humor at a circuit dinner.
The
hunting season over, all past tricks and maneuvres are forgotten,
all feuds and bickerings buried in oblivion. From the middle of
June to the middle of September, all trapping is suspended; for
the beavers are then shedding their furs and their skins are of
little value. This, then, is the trapper's holiday, when he is
all for fun and frolic, and ready for a saturnalia among the
mountains.
At the present season, too, all parties were in good humor. The
year had been productive. Competition, by threatening to lessen
their profits, had quickened their wits, roused their energies,
and made them turn every favorable chance to the best advantage;
so that, on assembling at their respective places of rendezvous,
each company found itself in possession of a rich stock of
peltries.
The leaders of the different companies, therefore, mingled on
terms of perfect good fellowship; interchanging visits, and
regaling each other in the best style their respective camps
afforded. But the rich treat for the worthy captain was to see
the "chivalry" of the various encampments, engaged in contests of
skill at running, jumping, wrestling, shooting with the rifle,
and running horses. And then their rough hunters' feastings and
carousels. They drank together, they sang, they laughed, they
whooped; they tried to out-brag and out-lie each other in stories
of their adventures and achievements. Here the free trappers were
in all their glory; they considered themselves the "cocks of the
walk," and always carried the highest crests. Now and then
familiarity was pushed too far, and would effervesce into a
brawl, and a "rough and tumble" fight; but it all ended in
cordial reconciliation and maudlin endearment.
The presence of the Shoshonie tribe contributed occasionally to
cause temporary jealousies and feuds. The Shoshonie beauties
became objects of rivalry among some of the amorous mountaineers.
Happy was the trapper who could muster up a red blanket, a string
of gay beads, or a paper of precious vermilion, with which to win
the smiles of a Shoshonie fair one.
The caravans of supplies arrived at the valley just at this
period of gallantry and good fellowship. Now commenced a scene of
eager competition and wild prodigality at the different
encampments. Bales were hastily ripped open, and their motley
contents poured forth. A mania for purchasing spread itself
throughout the several bands - munitions for war, for hunting, for
gallantry, were seized upon with equal avidity - rifles, hunting
knives, traps, scarlet cloth, red blankets, garish beads, and
glittering trinkets, were bought at any price, and scores run up
without any thought how they were ever to be rubbed off. The free
trappers, especially, were extravagant in their purchases. For a
free mountaineer to pause at a paltry consideration of dollars
and cents, in the attainment of any object that might strike his
fancy, would stamp him with the mark of the beast in the
estimation of his comrades.
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