IN THE OLD WEST 127 



while engaged in trapping beaver on the stream. 

 Thus alone is the memory of these hardy men per- 

 petuated, at least of those whose fate is ascer- 

 tained ; for many, in every season, never return 

 from their hunting expeditions, but meet a sudden 

 death from Indians, or a more lingering fate from 

 accident or disease in some lonely gorge of the 

 mountains, where no footfall save their own, or 

 the heavy tread of the grizzly bear, disturbs the 

 unbroken silence of the awful solitude. Then, as 

 many winters pass without some old familiar faces 

 making their appearance at the merry rendezvous, 

 their long-protracted absence may perhaps elicit 

 a remark, as to where such and such a mountain 

 worthy can have betaken himself; to which the 

 casual rejoinder of " Gone under, maybe," too 

 often gives a short but certain answer. 



In all the philosophy of hardened hearts, our 

 hunters turned from the spot where the un- 

 mourned trapper met his death. La Bonte, how- 

 ever, not yet entirely steeled by mountain life to 

 a perfect indifference to human feeling, drew his 

 hard hand across his ej'e, as the unbidden tear 

 rose from his rough but kindly heart. He could 

 not forget so soon the comrade he had lost ; the 

 companion in the hunt or over the cheerful camp- 

 fire ; the narrator of many a tale of dangers past 

 — of sufferings from hunger, cold, thirst, and un- 

 tended wounds — of Indian perils, and other vicis- 

 situdes. One tear dropped from the young 



