122 LIFE IN THE FAE WEST 



where she soon becomes inured to the free and roving 

 life fate has assigned her. 



American women are valued at a low figure in 

 the mountains. They are too fine and "fofarraw." 

 Neither can they make mocassins, or dress skins ; nor 

 are they so schooled to perfect obedience to their lords and 

 masters as to stand a "lodge-poleing," which the western 

 lords of the creation not unfrequently deem it their 

 bounden duty to inflict upon their squaws for some 

 dereliction of domestic duty. 



To return, however, to La Bonte. That worthy 

 thought himself a lucky man to have lost but one of 

 his wives, and she the worst of the two. " Here's the 

 beauty," he philosophised, " of having two ' wiping- 

 sticks ' to your rifle ; if one breaks whilst ramming 

 down a ball, there's still hickory left to supply its place." 

 Although, with animals and peltry, he had lost several 

 hundred dollars' worth of "possibles," he never groaned 

 or grumbled. " There's redskin will pay for this," he 

 once muttered, and was done. 



Packing all that was left on the mule, and mounting 

 Chil-co-the on his buffalo horse, he shouldered his rifle 

 and struck the Indian trail for Platte. On Horse Creek 

 they came upon a party of French * trappers and 

 hunters, who were encamped with their lodges and 

 Indian squaws, and formed quite a village. Several old 

 companions were amongst them ; and, to celebrate the 

 arrival of a " camarade," a splendid dog-feast was pre- 

 pared in honour of the event. To effect this, the squaws 

 * Creoles of St Louis, and French Canadians. 



