Some Of The Dogs, Encumbered By Their Loads, Were
Carried Down By The Current, Yelping Piteously; And The Old Squaws
Would Rush Into The Water, Seize Their Favorites By The Neck, And
Drag Them Out.
As each horse gained the bank, he scrambled up as he
could.
Stray horses and colts came among the rest, often breaking
away at full speed through the crowd, followed by the old hags,
screaming after their fashion on all occasions of excitement. Buxom
young squaws, blooming in all the charms of vermilion, stood here and
there on the bank, holding aloft their master's lance, as a signal to
collect the scattered portions of his household. In a few moments
the crowd melted away; each family, with its horses and equipage,
filing off to the plain at the rear of the fort; and here, in the
space of half an hour, arose sixty or seventy of their tapering
lodges. Their horses were feeding by hundreds over the surrounding
prairie, and their dogs were roaming everywhere. The fort was full
of men, and the children were whooping and yelling incessantly under
the walls.
These newcomers were scarcely arrived, when Bordeaux was running
across the fort, shouting to his squaw to bring him his spyglass.
The obedient Marie, the very model of a squaw, produced the
instrument, and Bordeaux hurried with it up to the wall. Pointing it
to the eastward, he exclaimed, with an oath, that the families were
coming. But a few moments elapsed before the heavy caravan of the
emigrant wagons could be seen, steadily advancing from the hills.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 134 of 486
Words from 35759 to 36023
of 129303
