IN THE OLD WEST 105 



Many clear streams dashing over their pebbly 

 beds intersect the country, from which, in the 

 noonday's heat, the red-deer jump, shaking their 

 wet sides as the noise of approaching man dis- 

 turbs them ; and booming grouse rise from the tall 

 luxuriant herbage at every step. Where the deep 

 escarpments of the river-banks exhibit the section 

 of the earth, a rich alluvial soil of surpassing depth 

 courts the cultivation of civilized man; and in 

 every feature it is evident that here nature has 

 worked with kindliest and most bountiful hand. 



For hundreds of miles along the western or 

 right bank of the Missouri does a country extend, 

 with which, for fertility and natural resources, 

 no part of Europe can stand comparison. Suffi- 

 ciently large to contain an enormous population, 

 it has, besides, every advantage of position, and 

 all the natural capabilities which should make it 

 the happy abode of civilized man. Through this 

 unpeopled country the United States pours her 

 greedy thousands, to seize upon the barren terri- 

 tories of her feeble neighbor. 



Camping the first night on Black Jack, our 

 mountaineers here cut each man a spare hickory 

 wiping-stick for his rifle ; and La Bonte, who was 

 the only greenhorn of the party, witnessed a sav- 

 age ebullition of rage on the part of one of his 

 companions, exhibiting the perfect unrestraint 

 which these men impose upon their passions, and 

 the barbarous anger which the slightest opposi- 



