IN THE OLD WEST 97 



remote western tracts, still infested by the sav- 

 age ; so that, if any of their blood is infused into 

 the native population, the characteristic energy 

 and enterprise is increased, and not tempered down 

 by the foreign cross. 



But perhaps the most singular of the casual 

 population are the mountaineers, who, after sev- 

 eral seasons spent in trapping, and with good 

 store of dollars, arrive from the scene of their ad- 

 ventures, wild as savages, determined to enjoy 

 themselves, for a time, in all the gayety and dis- 

 sipation of the western city. In one of the back 

 streets of the town is a tavern well known as the 

 Rocky-Mountain House; and hither the trappers 

 resort, drinking and fighting* as long as their 

 money lasts, which, as they are generous and lav- 

 ish as Jack Tars, is for a few days only. Such 

 scenes, both tragic and comic, as are enacted in 

 the Rocky-Mountain House, are beyond the powers 

 of pen to describe; and when a fandango is in 

 progress, to which congregate the coquettish belles 

 from " Vide Poche," * as the French portion of the 

 suburb is nicknamed, the grotesque endeavors of 

 the bear-like mountaineers to sport a figure on 

 the light fantastic toe, and their insertions into 

 the dance of the mystic jumps of Terpsichorean 

 Indians when engaged in the " medicine " dances 

 in honor of bear, of buffalo, or ravished scalp, are 



* Empty Pocket: A humorous nickname that the old 

 French bestowed upon Carondelet. (Ed.) 



