LIFE IN THE FAR WEST 67 



the "hair" each hunter has "lifted" from Indians' 

 scalps; multitudinous the "coups** he has "struck." 

 As they drink so do they brag, first of their guns, their 

 horses, and their squaws, and lastly of themselves : and 

 when it comes to that, " ware steel." 



La Bonte, on his arrival at St Louis, found himself 

 one day in no less a place than this ; and here he made 

 acquaintance with an old trapper about to start for the 

 mountains in a few days, to hunt on the head waters of 

 Platte and Green River. With this man he resolved to 

 start, and, having still some hundred dollars in cash, he 

 immediately set about equipping himself for the expe- 

 dition. To effect this, he first of all visited the gun- 

 store of Hawken, whose rifles are renowned in the 

 mountains, and exchanged his own piece, which was of 

 very small bore, for a regular mountain rifle. This 

 was of very heavy metal, carrying about thirty-two 

 balls to the pound, stocked to the muzzle, and mounted 

 with brass ; its only ornament being a buffalo bull, look- 

 ing exceedingly ferocious, which was not very artistically 

 engraved upon the trap in the stock. Here, too, he 

 laid in a few pounds of powder and lead, and all the 

 necessaries for a long hunt. 



His next visit was to a smith's store, which smith 

 was black by trade and black by nature, for he was a* 

 nigger, and, moreover, celebrated as being the best 

 maker of beaver-traps in St Louis ; and of him he 

 purchased six new traps, paying for the same twenty 

 dollars procuring, at the same time, an old trap-sack 

 made of stout buffalo skin, in which to carry them. 



