I feared that, after all, the long-projected meeting and
the ceremonies that were to attend it might never take place, and I
should lose so admirable an opportunity of seeing the Indian under
his most fearful and characteristic aspect; however, in foregoing
this, I should avoid a very fair probability of being plundered and
stripped, and, it might be, stabbed or shot into the bargain.
Consoling myself with this reflection, I prepared to carry the news,
such as it was, to the camp.
I caught my horse, and to my vexation found he had lost a shoe and
broken his tender white hoof against the rocks. Horses are shod at
Fort Laramie at the moderate rate of three dollars a foot; so I tied
Hendrick to a beam in the corral, and summoned Roubidou, the
blacksmith. Roubidou, with the hoof between his knees, was at work
with hammer and file, and I was inspecting the process, when a
strange voice addressed me.
Two more gone under! Well, there is more of us left yet. Here's
Jean Gars and me off to the mountains to-morrow. Our turn will come
next, I suppose. It's a hard life, anyhow!"
I looked up and saw a little man, not much more than five feet high,
but of very square and strong proportions. In appearance he was
particularly dingy; for his old buckskin frock was black and polished
with time and grease, and his belt, knife, pouch, and powder-horn
appeared to have seen the roughest service. The first joint of each
foot was entirely gone, having been frozen off several winters
before, and his moccasins were curtailed in proportion. His whole
appearance and equipment bespoke the "free trapper." He had a round
ruddy face, animated with a spirit of carelessness and gayety not at
all in accordance with the words he had just spoken.
"Two more gone," said I; "what do you mean by that?"
"Oh," said he, "the Arapahoes have just killed two of us in the
mountains. Old Bull-Tail has come to tell us. They stabbed one
behind his back, and shot the other with his own rifle. That's the
way we live here! I mean to give up trapping after this year. My
squaw says she wants a pacing horse and some red ribbons; I'll make
enough beaver to get them for her, and then I'm done! I'll go below
and live on a farm."
"Your bones will dry on the prairie, Rouleau!" said another trapper,
who was standing by; a strong, brutal-looking fellow, with a face as
surly as a bull-dog's.
Rouleau only laughed, and began to hum a tune and shuffle a dance on
his stumps of feet.
"You'll see us, before long, passing up our way," said the other man.
