Some left even their lodges, and contented themselves with
carrying a few hides to make a shelter from the sun and rain. Half
the inhabitants set out in the afternoon, with loaded pack horses,
toward the mountains. Here they suspended the dried meat upon trees,
where the wolves and grizzly bears could not get at it. All returned
at evening. Some of the young men declared that they had heard the
reports of guns among the mountains to the eastward, and many
surmises were thrown out as to the origin of these sounds. For my
part, I was in hopes that Shaw and Henry Chatillon were coming to
join us. I would have welcomed them cordially, for I had no other
companions than two brutish white men and five hundred savages. I
little suspected that at that very moment my unlucky comrade was
lying on a buffalo robe at Fort Laramie, fevered with ivy poison, and
solacing his woes with tobacco and Shakespeare.
As we moved over the plains on the next morning, several young men
were riding about the country as scouts; and at length we began to
see them occasionally on the tops of the hills, shaking their robes
as a signal that they saw buffalo. Soon after, some bulls came in
sight. Horsemen darted away in pursuit, and we could see from the
distance that one or two of the buffalo were killed. Raymond
suddenly became inspired. I looked at him as he rode by my side; his
face had actually grown intelligent!
"This is the country for me!" he said; "if I could only carry the
buffalo that are killed here every month down to St. Louis I'd make
my fortune in one winter. I'd grow as rich as old Papin, or
Mackenzie either. I call this the poor man's market. When I'm
hungry I have only got to take my rifle and go out and get better
meat than the rich folks down below can get with all their money.
You won't catch me living in St. Louis another winter."
"No," said Reynal, "you had better say that after you and your
Spanish woman almost starved to death there. What a fool you were
ever to take her to the settlements."
"Your Spanish woman?" said I; "I never heard of her before. Are you
married to her?"
"No," answered Raymond, again looking intelligent; "the priests don't
marry their women, and why should I marry mine?"
This honorable mention of the Mexican clergy introduced the subject
of religion, and I found that my two associates, in common with other
white men in the country, were as indifferent to their future welfare
as men whose lives are in constant peril are apt to be.
