LIFE IN THE FAR WEST 95 



dipped into a mysterious-looking phial containing his 

 " medicine." * 



The next morning they visited the traps, and had the 

 satisfaction of finding three fine beaver secured in the 

 first three they visited, and the fourth, which had been 

 carried away, they discovered by the float-stick, a little 

 distance down the stream, with a large drowned beaver 

 between its teeth. 



The animals being carefully skinned, they returned 

 to camp with the choicest portions of the meat, and the 

 tails, on which they most luxuriously supped ; and La 

 Bont6 was fain to confess that all his ideas of the 

 superexcellence of buffalo were thrown in the shade by 

 the delicious beaver tail, the rich meat of which he was 

 compelled to allow was " great eating," unsurpassed by 

 " tender loin " or " boudin," or other meat of whatever 

 kind he had eaten of before. 



The country where La Bont^ and his companions were 

 trapping is very curiously situated in the extensive bend 

 of the Platte which encloses the Black Hill range on the 

 north, and which bounds the large expanse of broken tract 

 known as the Laramie Plains, their southern limit being 

 the base of the Medicine Bow Mountains. From the 

 north-western corner of the bend, an inconsiderable range 

 extends to the westward, gradually increasing in height 

 until it reaches an elevated plain, which forms a break 

 in the stupendous chain of the Kocky Mountains, and 

 affords the easy passage now known as the Great, or South 



* A substance obtained from a gland in the scrotum of the 

 beaver, and used to attract that animal to the trap. 



