Having Also Put On Radiant Moccasins, Procured From A Squaw Of
Richard's Establishment, And Made What Other Improvements Our Narrow
Circumstances Allowed, We Took Our Seats On The Grass With A Feeling
Of Greatly Increased Respectability, To Wait The Arrival Of Our
Guests.
They came; the banquet was concluded, and the pipe smoked.
Bidding them adieu, we turned our horses' heads toward the fort.
An hour elapsed. The barren hills closed across our front, and we
could see no farther; until having surmounted them, a rapid stream
appeared at the foot of the descent, running into the Platte; beyond
was a green meadow, dotted with bushes, and in the midst of these, at
the point where the two rivers joined, were the low clay walls of a
fort. This was not Fort Laramie, but another post of less recent
date, which having sunk before its successful competitor was now
deserted and ruinous. A moment after the hills, seeming to draw
apart as we advanced, disclosed Fort Laramie itself, its high
bastions and perpendicular walls of clay crowning an eminence on the
left beyond the stream, while behind stretched a line of arid and
desolate ridges, and behind these again, towering aloft seven
thousand feet, arose the grim Black Hills.
We tried to ford Laramie Creek at a point nearly opposite the fort,
but the stream, swollen with the rains in the mountains, was too
rapid. We passed up along its bank to find a better crossing place.
Men gathered on the wall to look at us.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 123 of 486
Words from 32759 to 33014
of 129303
