Meanwhile The Party Came In Sight From Out Of The Bushes.
Foremost
rode Henry Chatillon, our guide and hunter, a fine athletic figure,
mounted on a hardy gray Wyandotte pony.
He wore a white blanket-
coat, a broad hat of felt, moccasins, and pantaloons of deerskin,
ornamented along the seams with rows of long fringes. His knife was
stuck in his belt; his bullet-pouch and powder-horn hung at his side,
and his rifle lay before him, resting against the high pommel of his
saddle, which, like all his equipments, had seen hard service, and
was much the worse for wear. Shaw followed close, mounted on a
little sorrel horse, and leading a larger animal by a rope. His
outfit, which resembled mine, had been provided with a view to use
rather than ornament. It consisted of a plain, black Spanish saddle,
with holsters of heavy pistols, a blanket rolled up behind it, and
the trail-rope attached to his horse's neck hanging coiled in front.
He carried a double-barreled smooth-bore, while I boasted a rifle of
some fifteen pounds' weight. At that time our attire, though far
from elegant, bore some marks of civilization, and offered a very
favorable contrast to the inimitable shabbiness of our appearance on
the return journey. A red flannel shirt, belted around the waist
like a frock, then constituted our upper garment; moccasins had
supplanted our failing boots; and the remaining essential portion of
our attire consisted of an extraordinary article, manufactured by a
squaw out of smoked buckskin. Our muleteer, Delorier, brought up the
rear with his cart, waddling ankle-deep in the mud, alternately
puffing at his pipe, and ejaculating in his prairie patois: 'Sacre
enfant de garce!" as one of the mules would seem to recoil before
some abyss of unusual profundity. The cart was of the kind that one
may see by scores around the market-place in Montreal, and had a
white covering to protect the articles within. These were our
provisions and a tent, with ammunition, blankets, and presents for
the Indians.
We were in all four men with eight animals; for besides the spare
horses led by Shaw and myself, an additional mule was driven along
with us as a reserve in case of accident.
After this summing up of our forces, it may not be amiss to glance at
the characters of the two men who accompanied us.
Delorier was a Canadian, with all the characteristics of the true
Jean Baptiste. Neither fatigue, exposure, nor hard labor could ever
impair his cheerfulness and gayety, or his obsequious politeness to
his bourgeois; and when night came he would sit down by the fire,
smoke his pipe, and tell stories with the utmost contentment. In
fact, the prairie was his congenial element. Henry Chatillon was of
a different stamp. When we were at St. Louis, several gentlemen of
the Fur Company had kindly offered to procure for us a hunter and
guide suited for our purposes, and on coming one afternoon to the
office, we found there a tall and exceedingly well-dressed man with a
face so open and frank that it attracted our notice at once. We were
surprised at being told that it was he who wished to guide us to the
mountains. He was born in a little French town near St. Louis, and
from the age of fifteen years had been constantly in the neighborhood
of the Rocky Mountains, employed for the most part by the Company to
supply their forts with buffalo meat. As a hunter he had but one
rival in the whole region, a man named Cimoneau, with whom, to the
honor of both of them, he was on terms of the closest friendship. He
had arrived at St. Louis the day before, from the mountains, where he
had remained for four years; and he now only asked to go and spend a
day with his mother before setting out on another expedition. His
age was about thirty; he was six feet high, and very powerfully and
gracefully molded. The prairies had been his school; he could
neither read nor write, but he had a natural refinement and delicacy
of mind such as is rarely found, even in women. His manly face was a
perfect mirror of uprightness, simplicity, and kindness of heart; he
had, moreover, a keen perception of character and a tact that would
preserve him from flagrant error in any society. Henry had not the
restless energy of an Anglo-American. He was content to take things
as he found them; and his chief fault arose from an excess of easy
generosity, impelling him to give away too profusely ever to thrive
in the world. Yet it was commonly remarked of him, that whatever he
might choose to do with what belonged to himself, the property of
others was always safe in his hands. His bravery was as much
celebrated in the mountains as his skill in hunting; but it is
characteristic of him that in a country where the rifle is the chief
arbiter between man and man, Henry was very seldom involved in
quarrels. Once or twice, indeed, his quiet good-nature had been
mistaken and presumed upon, but the consequences of the error were so
formidable that no one was ever known to repeat it. No better
evidence of the intrepidity of his temper could be wished than the
common report that he had killed more than thirty grizzly bears. He
was a proof of what unaided nature will sometimes do. I have never,
in the city or in the wilderness, met a better man than my noble and
true-hearted friend, Henry Chatillon.
We were soon free of the woods and bushes, and fairly upon the broad
prairie. Now and then a Shawanoe passed us, riding his little shaggy
pony at a "lope"; his calico shirt, his gaudy sash, and the gay
handkerchief bound around his snaky hair fluttering in the wind.
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