Meanwhile Our
Horses, Now Hobbled For The First Time, Stood Among The Trees, With
Their Fore-Legs Tied Together, In Great Disgust And Astonishment.
They seemed by no means to relish this foretaste of what was before
them.
Mine, in particular, had conceived a moral aversion to the
prairie life. One of them, christened Hendrick, an animal whose
strength and hardihood were his only merits, and who yielded to
nothing but the cogent arguments of the whip, looked toward us with
an indignant countenance, as if he meditated avenging his wrongs with
a kick. The other, Pontiac, a good horse, though of plebeian
lineage, stood with his head drooping and his mane hanging about his
eyes, with the grieved and sulky air of a lubberly boy sent off to
school. Poor Pontiac! his forebodings were but too just; for when I
last heard from him, he was under the lash of an Ogallalla brave, on
a war party against the Crows.
As it grew dark, and the voices of the whip-poor-wills succeeded the
whistle of the quails, we removed our saddles to the tent, to serve
as pillows, spread our blankets upon the ground, and prepared to
bivouac for the first time that season. Each man selected the place
in the tent which he was to occupy for the journey. To Delorier,
however, was assigned the cart, into which he could creep in wet
weather, and find a much better shelter than his bourgeois enjoyed in
the tent.
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