248 THE FUR TRADE OF AMERICA 



bank waving a buffalo-robe and spreading it out to signal a welcome 

 to the white man ; when the trapper would go ashore, whiff pipes 

 with the chiefs and perhaps spend the night listening to the tales of 

 exploits which each notch on the calumet typified. Incidents 

 that meant nothing to other men were full of significance to the 

 lone voyageur through hostile lands. Always the spring floods 

 drifted down numbers of dead buffalo ; and the carrion birds sat 

 on the trees of the shore with their wings spread out to dry in the 

 sun. The sudden flacker of a rising flock betrayed something 

 prowling in ambush on the bank; so did the splash of a snake from 

 overhanging branches into the water. 



Different sorts of dangers beset the free trapper crossing the 

 plains to the mountains. The fur company brigades always had 

 escort of armed guard and provision packers. The free trappers 

 went alone or in pairs, picketing horses to the saddle overlaid with a 

 buffalo-robe for a pillow, cooking meals on chip fires, using a slow- 

 burning wormwood bark for matches, and trusting their horses or 

 dog to give the alarm if the bands of coyotes hovering through the 

 night dusk approached too near. On the high rolling plains, 

 hostiles could be descried at a distance, coming over the horizon 

 head and top first like the peak of a sail, or emerging from the 

 "coolies" — dried sloughs — like wolves from the earth. Enemies 

 could be seen soon enough ; but where could the trapper hide on 

 bare prairie ? He didn't attempt to hide. He simply set fire to the 

 prairie and took refuge on the lee side. That device failing, he 

 was at his enemies' mercy. 



On the plains, the greatest danger was from lack of water. At 

 one season the trapper might know where to find good camping 

 streams. The next year when he came to those streams they were 

 dry. 



"After leaving the buffalo meadows a dreadful scarcity of 

 water ensued," wrote Charles MacKenzie, of the famous Mac- 

 Kenzie clan. He was journeying north from the Missouri. "We 

 had to alter our course and steer to a distant lake. When we 



