286 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST 



no account, he knew ; but beaver was bound to rise, 

 and then the good times would come again. What 

 could he do in the settlements, where there wasn't 

 room to move, and where it was hard to breathe 

 there were so many people ? " 



He accompanied them a considerable distance down 

 the river, ever and anon looking cautiously back, to 

 ascertain that he had not gone out of sight of the 

 mountains. Before reaching the forks, however, he 

 finally bade them adieu ; and, turning the head of his 

 old grizzled mule westward, he heartily wrung the hand 

 of his comrade La Bonte ; and, crying Yep ! to his 

 well-tried animal, disappeared behind a roll of the 

 prairie, and was seen no more a thousand good wishes 

 for the 'welfare of the sturdy trapper speeding him on 

 his solitary way. 



Four months from the day when La Bonte so oppor- 

 tunely appeared to rescue Brand's family from the 

 Indians on Black Horse Creek, that worthy and the 

 faithful Mary were duly and lawfully united in the 

 township church of Brandville, Memphis county, State 

 of Tennessee. We cannot say, in the concluding words 

 of nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand novels, that 

 "numerous pledges of mutual love surrounded and 

 cheered them in their declining years," &c. &c. ; be- 

 cause it was only on the 24th of July, in the year 

 of our Lord 1847, that La Bonte and Mary Brand were 

 finally made one, after fifteen long years of separation. 



The fate of one of the humble characters who have 



