Here We Encamped; And
Being Much Too Indolent To Pitch Our Tent, We Flung Our Saddles On
The Ground, Spread A Pair Of Buffalo Robes, Lay Down Upon Them, And
Began To Smoke.
Meanwhile, Delorier busied himself with his hissing
frying-pan, and Raymond stood guard over the band of grazing horses.
Delorier had an active assistant in Rouville, who professed great
skill in the culinary art, and seizing upon a fork, began to lend his
zealous aid in making ready supper. Indeed, according to his own
belief, Rouville was a man of universal knowledge, and he lost no
opportunity to display his manifold accomplishments. He had been a
circus-rider at St. Louis, and once he rode round Fort Laramie on his
head, to the utter bewilderment of all the Indians. He was also
noted as the wit of the Fort; and as he had considerable humor and
abundant vivacity, he contributed more that night to the liveliness
of the camp than all the rest of the party put together. At one
instant he would be kneeling by Delorier, instructing him in the true
method of frying antelope steaks, then he would come and seat himself
at our side, dilating upon the orthodox fashion of braiding up a
horse's tail, telling apocryphal stories how he had killed a buffalo
bull with a knife, having first cut off his tail when at full speed,
or relating whimsical anecdotes of the bourgeois Papin. At last he
snatched up a volume of Shakespeare that was lying on the grass, and
halted and stumbled through a line or two to prove that he could
read.
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