2 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST 



here in order to lay in a store of provisions, or, 

 as it is termed in the language of the mountains, " to 

 make meat.' 5 Round the camp fed twelve or fifteen 

 mules and horses, their fore-legs confined by hobbles 

 of raw hide ; and, guarding these animals, two men 

 paced backwards and forwards, driving in the stragglers, 

 ascending ever and anon the bluffs which overhung the 

 river, and leaning on their long rifles, whilst they swept 

 with their eyes the surrounding prairie. Three or four 

 fires burned in the encampment, at some of which 

 Indian women carefully tended sundry steaming pots : 

 whilst round one, which was in the centre of it, four or 

 five stalwart hunters, clad in buckskin, sat cross-legged, 

 pipe in mouth. 



They were a trapping party from the north fork of 

 Platte, on their way to wintering-ground in the more 

 southern valley of the Arkansa ; some, indeed, medi- 

 tating a more extended trip, even to the distant settle- 

 ments of New Mexico, the paradise of mountaineers. 

 The elder of the company was a tall gaunt man, with 

 a face browned by twenty years' exposure to the ex- 

 treme climate of the mountains ; his long black hair, 

 as yet scarcely tinged with grey, hanging almost to his 

 shoulders, but his cheeks and chin clean shaven, after 

 the fashion of the mountain-men. His dress was the 

 usual hunting-frock of buckskin, with long fringes 

 down the seams, with pantaloons similarly ornamented, 

 and mocassins of Indian make. Whilst his companions 

 puffed their pipes in silence, he narrated a few of his 

 former experiences of western life ; and whilst the 



