66 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST 



makes the old wooden houses shake again, as it rattles 

 and echoes down the street. 



Here, over fiery " monaghahela," Jean Batiste, the 

 sallow half-breed voyageur from the north and who, 

 deserting the service of the " North West," (the Hudson's 

 Bay Company,) has come down the Mississippi, from 

 the " Falls," to try the sweets and liberty of " free " 

 trapping hobnobs with a stalwart leather-clad " boy," 

 just returned from trapping on the waters of Grand 

 Kiver, on the western side the mountains, who interlards 

 his mountain jargon with Spanish words picked up in 

 Taos and California. In one corner a trapper, lean and 

 gaunt from the starving regions of the Yellow Stone, 

 has just recognised an old carnpanyero, with whom he 

 hunted years before in the perilous country of the 

 Blackfeet. 



" Why, John, old hos, how do you come on 1 " 



" What ! Meek, old 'coon ! I thought you were 

 under?" 



One from Arkansa stalks into the centre of the room, 

 with a pack of cards in his hand, and a handful of 

 dollars in his hat. Squatting cross-legged on a buffalo 

 robe, he smacks down the money, and cries out " Ho, 

 boys, hyar's a deck, and hyar's the beaver, (rattling the 

 coin,) who dar set his hos 1 Wagh ! " 



Tough are the yarns of wondrous hunts and Indian 

 perils, of hairbreadth 'scapes and curious "fixes." Tran- 

 scendant are the qualities of sundry rifles, which call 

 these hunters masters ; " plum " is the " centre " each 

 vaunted barrel shoots ; sufficing for a hundred wigs is 



