98 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST 



together. A Shawanee blew a peaceful cloud with a 

 scion of the "Six Nations." One from the Land of 

 Cakes a canny chiel sought to "great round" (in 

 trade) a right " smart " Yankee, but couldn't " shine." 



The beaver went briskly, six dollars being the price 

 paid per Ib. in goods for money is seldom given in the 

 mountain market, where "beaver" is cash, for which 

 the articles supplied by the traders are bartered. In a 

 very short time peltries of every description had changed 

 hands, either by trade, or by gambling with cards and 

 betting. With the mountain men bets decide every 

 question that is raised, even the most trivial ; and if the 

 Editor of Bell's Life were to pay one of these rendezvous 

 a winter visit, he would find the broad sheet of his 

 paper hardly capacious enough to answer all the 

 questions which would be referred to his decision. 



Before the winter was over, La Bonte had lost all 

 traces of civilised humanity, and might justly claim to 

 be considered as " hard a case " as any of the mountain- 

 eers then present. Long before the spring opened, he 

 had lost all the produce of his hunt and both his 

 animals, which, however, by a stroke of luck, he 

 recovered, and wisely " held on to " for the future. 

 Eight glad when spring appeared, he started from 

 Brown's Hole, with four companions, to hunt the 

 Uintah or Snake country, and the affluents of the larger 

 streams which rise in that region and fall into the Gulf 

 of California. 



In the valley of the Bear River they found beaver 

 abundant, and trapped their way westward until they 



