We Could Look Down On The Summits Of The
Trees, Some Living And Some Dead; Some Erect, Others Leaning At Every
Angle, And Others Still Piled In Masses Together By The Passage Of A
Hurricane.
Beyond their extreme verge, the turbid waters of the
Missouri were discernible through the boughs, rolling powerfully
along at the foot of the woody declivities of its farther bank.
The path soon after led inland; and as we crossed an open meadow we
saw a cluster of buildings on a rising ground before us, with a crowd
of people surrounding them. They were the storehouse, cottage, and
stables of the Kickapoo trader's establishment. Just at that moment,
as it chanced, he was beset with half the Indians of the settlement.
They had tied their wretched, neglected little ponies by dozens along
the fences and outhouses, and were either lounging about the place,
or crowding into the trading house. Here were faces of various
colors; red, green, white, and black, curiously intermingled and
disposed over the visage in a variety of patterns. Calico shirts,
red and blue blankets, brass ear-rings, wampum necklaces, appeared in
profusion. The trader was a blue-eyed open-faced man who neither in
his manners nor his appearance betrayed any of the roughness of the
frontier; though just at present he was obliged to keep a lynx eye on
his suspicious customers, who, men and women, were climbing on his
counter and seating themselves among his boxes and bales.
The village itself was not far off, and sufficiently illustrated the
condition of its unfortunate and self-abandoned occupants.
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