When In The Black Hills They Had Caught Seven Beaver, And
They Now Left Their Skins In Charge Of Reynal, To Be Kept Until Their
Return.
Their strong, gaunt horses were equipped with rusty Spanish
bits and rude Mexican saddles, to which wooden stirrups were
attached, while a buffalo robe was rolled up behind them, and a
bundle of beaver traps slung at the pommel.
These, together with
their rifles, their knives, their powder-horns and bullet-pouches,
flint and steel and a tincup, composed their whole traveling
equipment. They shook hands with us and rode away; Saraphin with his
grim countenance, like a surly bulldog's, was in advance; but
Rouleau, clambering gayly into his seat, kicked his horse's sides,
flourished his whip in the air, and trotted briskly over the prairie,
trolling forth a Canadian song at the top of his lungs. Reynal
looked after them with his face of brutal selfishness.
"Well," he said, "if they are killed, I shall have the beaver.
They'll fetch me fifty dollars at the fort, anyhow."
This was the last I saw of them.
We had been for five days in the hunting camp, and the meat, which
all this time had hung drying in the sun, was now fit for
transportation. Buffalo hides also had been procured in sufficient
quantities for making the next season's lodges; but it remained to
provide the long slender poles on which they were to be supported.
These were only to be had among the tall pine woods of the Black
Hills, and in that direction therefore our next move was to be made.
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