As We Advanced, The Band Of
Buffalo Were Transformed Into Certain Clumps Of Tall Bushes, Dotting
The Prairie For A Considerable Distance.
At this ludicrous
termination of our chase, we followed the example of our late ally,
and turned back toward the party.
We were skirting the brink of a
deep ravine, when we saw Henry and the broad-chested pony coming
toward us at a gallop.
"Here's old Papin and Frederic, down from Fort Laramie!" shouted
Henry, long before he came up. We had for some days expected this
encounter. Papin was the bourgeois of Fort Laramie. He had come
down the river with the buffalo robes and the beaver, the produce of
the last winter's trading. I had among our baggage a letter which I
wished to commit to their hands; so requesting Henry to detain the
boats if he could until my return, I set out after the wagons. They
were about four miles in advance. In half an hour I overtook them,
got the letter, trotted back upon the trail, and looking carefully,
as I rode, saw a patch of broken, storm-blasted trees, and moving
near them some little black specks like men and horses. Arriving at
the place, I found a strange assembly. The boats, eleven in number,
deep-laden with the skins, hugged close to the shore, to escape being
borne down by the swift current. The rowers, swarthy ignoble
Mexicans, turned their brutish faces upward to look, as I reached the
bank. Papin sat in the middle of one of the boats upon the canvas
covering that protected the robes. He was a stout, robust fellow,
with a little gray eye, that had a peculiarly sly twinkle.
"Frederic" also stretched his tall rawboned proportions close by the
bourgeois, and "mountain-men" completed the group; some lounging in
the boats, some strolling on shore; some attired in gayly painted
buffalo robes, like Indian dandies; some with hair saturated with red
paint, and beplastered with glue to their temples; and one bedaubed
with vermilion upon his forehead and each cheek. They were a mongrel
race; yet the French blood seemed to predominate; in a few, indeed,
might be seen the black snaky eye of the Indian half-breed, and one
and all, they seemed to aim at assimilating themselves to their
savage associates.
I shook hands with the bourgeois, and delivered the letter; then the
boats swung round into the stream and floated away. They had reason
for haste, for already the voyage from Fort Laramie had occupied a
full month, and the river was growing daily more shallow. Fifty
times a day the boats had been aground, indeed; those who navigate
the Platte invariably spend half their time upon sand-bars. Two of
these boats, the property of private traders, afterward separating
from the rest, got hopelessly involved in the shallows, not very far
from the Pawnee villages, and were soon surrounded by a swarm of the
inhabitants. They carried off everything that they considered
valuable, including most of the robes; and amused themselves by tying
up the men left on guard and soundly whipping them with sticks.
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