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.
We encamped that night upon the bank of the river. Among the
emigrants there was an overgrown boy, some eighteen years old, with a
head as round and about as large as a pumpkin, and fever-and-ague
fits had dyed his face of a corresponding color. He wore an old
white hat, tied under his chin with a handkerchief; his body was
short and stout, but his legs of disproportioned and appalling
length.
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