On These Prairies The Custom Of Smoking With Friends Is Seldom
Omitted, Whether Among Indians Or Whites.
The pipe, therefore, was
taken from the wall, and its great red bowl crammed with the tobacco
and shongsasha, mixed in suitable proportions.
Then it passed round
the circle, each man inhaling a few whiffs and handing it to his
neighbor. Having spent half an hour here, we took our leave; first
inviting our new friends to drink a cup of coffee with us at our
camp, a mile farther up the river. By this time, as the reader may
conceive, we had grown rather shabby; our clothes had burst into rags
and tatters; and what was worse, we had very little means of
renovation. Fort Laramie was but seven miles before us. Being
totally averse to appearing in such plight among any society that
could boast an approximation to the civilized, we soon stopped by the
river to make our toilet in the best way we could. We hung up small
looking-glasses against the trees and shaved, an operation neglected
for six weeks; we performed our ablutions in the Platte, though the
utility of such a proceeding was questionable, the water looking
exactly like a cup of chocolate, and the banks consisting of the
softest and richest yellow mud, so that we were obliged, as a
preliminary, to build a cause-way of stout branches and twigs.
Having also put on radiant moccasins, procured from a squaw of
Richard's establishment, and made what other improvements our narrow
circumstances allowed, we took our seats on the grass with a feeling
of greatly increased respectability, to wait the arrival of our
guests. They came; the banquet was concluded, and the pipe smoked.
Bidding them adieu, we turned our horses' heads toward the fort.
An hour elapsed. The barren hills closed across our front, and we
could see no farther; until having surmounted them, a rapid stream
appeared at the foot of the descent, running into the Platte; beyond
was a green meadow, dotted with bushes, and in the midst of these, at
the point where the two rivers joined, were the low clay walls of a
fort. This was not Fort Laramie, but another post of less recent
date, which having sunk before its successful competitor was now
deserted and ruinous. A moment after the hills, seeming to draw
apart as we advanced, disclosed Fort Laramie itself, its high
bastions and perpendicular walls of clay crowning an eminence on the
left beyond the stream, while behind stretched a line of arid and
desolate ridges, and behind these again, towering aloft seven
thousand feet, arose the grim Black Hills.
We tried to ford Laramie Creek at a point nearly opposite the fort,
but the stream, swollen with the rains in the mountains, was too
rapid. We passed up along its bank to find a better crossing place.
Men gathered on the wall to look at us. "There's Bordeaux!" called
Henry, his face brightening as he recognized his acquaintance; "him
there with the spyglass; and there's old Vaskiss, and Tucker, and
May; and, by George!
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