About fifty miles south of us; it was moving slowly and would not
arrive in less than a week; and where was Henry's squaw?
Coming as
fast as she could with Mahto-Tatonka, and the rest of her brothers,
but she would never reach us, for she was dying, and asking every
moment for Henry. Henry's manly face became clouded and downcast; he
said that if we were willing he would go in the morning to find her,
at which Shaw offered to accompany him.
We saddled our horses at sunrise. Reynal protested vehemently
against being left alone, with nobody but the two Canadians and the
young Indians, when enemies were in the neighborhood. Disregarding
his complaints, we left him, and coming to the mouth of Chugwater,
separated, Shaw and Henry turning to the right, up the bank of the
stream, while I made for the fort.
Taking leave for a while of my friend and the unfortunate squaw, I
will relate by way of episode what I saw and did at Fort Laramie. It
was not more than eighteen miles distant, and I reached it in three
hours; a shriveled little figure, wrapped from head to foot in a
dingy white Canadian capote, stood in the gateway, holding by a cord
of bull's hide a shaggy wild horse, which he had lately caught. His
sharp prominent features, and his little keen snakelike eyes, looked
out from beneath the shadowy hood of the capote, which was drawn over
his head exactly like the cowl of a Capuchin friar. His face was
extremely thin and like an old piece of leather, and his mouth spread
from ear to ear. Extending his long wiry hand, he welcomed me with
something more cordial than the ordinary cold salute of an Indian,
for we were excellent friends. He had made an exchange of horses to
our mutual advantage; and Paul, thinking himself well-treated, had
declared everywhere that the white man had a good heart. He was a
Dakota from the Missouri, a reputed son of the half-breed
interpreter, Pierre Dorion, so often mentioned in Irving's "Astoria."
He said that he was going to Richard's trading house to sell his
horse to some emigrants who were encamped there, and asked me to go
with him. We forded the stream together, Paul dragging his wild
charge behind him. As we passed over the sandy plains beyond, he
grew quite communicative. Paul was a cosmopolitan in his way; he had
been to the settlements of the whites, and visited in peace and war
most of the tribes within the range of a thousand miles. He spoke a
jargon of French and another of English, yet nevertheless he was a
thorough Indian; and as he told of the bloody deeds of his own people
against their enemies, his little eye would glitter with a fierce
luster. He told how the Dakota exterminated a village of the Hohays
on the Upper Missouri, slaughtering men, women, and children; and how
an overwhelming force of them cut off sixteen of the brave Delawares,
who fought like wolves to the last, amid the throng of their enemies.
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