IN THE OLD WEST 131 



set ; and over these Luke placed a little stick, 

 which he first 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 dis- 

 covered by the float-stick a little distance down 

 the stream, with a large drowned beaver between 

 its teeth. 



The animals being carefully skinned, they re- 

 turned to camp with the choicest portions of the 

 meat, and the tails, on which they most luxuri- 

 ously supped ; and La Bonte was fain to confess 

 that all his ideas of the superexcellence of buffalo 

 were throwTi 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 Bonte and his com- 

 panions were trapping is very curiously situated 

 in the extensive bend of the Platte which incloses 

 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 comer of the bend, an incon- 



* A substance obtained from a gland in the scrotum of 

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



