Numerous Squaws, Gayly Bedizened, Sat Grouped In Front Of The
Apartments They Occupied; Their Mongrel Offspring, Restless And
Vociferous, Rambled In Every Direction Through The Fort; And The
Trappers, Traders, And ENGAGES Of The Establishment Were Busy At
Their Labor Or Their Amusements.
We were met at the gate, but by no means cordially welcomed.
Indeed,
we seemed objects of some distrust and suspicion until Henry
Chatillon explained that we were not traders, and we, in
confirmation, handed to the bourgeois a letter of introduction from
his principals. He took it, turned it upside down, and tried hard to
read it; but his literary attainments not being adequate to the task,
he applied for relief to the clerk, a sleek, smiling Frenchman, named
Montalon. The letter read, Bordeaux (the bourgeois) seemed gradually
to awaken to a sense of what was expected of him. Though not
deficient in hospitable intentions, he was wholly unaccustomed to act
as master of ceremonies. Discarding all formalities of reception, he
did not honor us with a single word, but walked swiftly across the
area, while we followed in some admiration to a railing and a flight
of steps opposite the entrance. He signed to us that we had better
fasten our horses to the railing; then he walked up the steps,
tramped along a rude balcony, and kicking open a door displayed a
large room, rather more elaborately finished than a barn. For
furniture it had a rough bedstead, but no bed; two chairs, a chest of
drawers, a tin pail to hold water, and a board to cut tobacco upon.
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