158 IN THE OLD WEST 



third day that sundown saw him enter the little 

 valley where his camp was situated. 



Crossing the creek, he was not a little disturbed 

 at seeing fresh Indian sign on the opposite side, 

 which led in the direction of his lodge ; and his 

 worst fears were realized when, on coming within 

 sight of the little plateau where the conical top 

 of his white lodge had always before met his view, 

 he saw nothing but a blackened mass strewing the 

 ground, and the burnt ends of the poles which had 

 once supported it. 



Squaws, animals, and peltry, all were gone — 

 an Arapaho moccasin lying on the ground told 

 him where. He neither fumed nor fretted, but, 

 throwing the meat off his pack animal, and the 

 saddle from his horse, he collected the black- 

 ened ends of the lodge poles and made a fire — 

 led his beasts to water and hobbled them, threw 

 a piece of buffalo-meat upon the coals, squatted 

 down before the fire, and lit his pipe. La Bonte 

 was a true philosopher. Notwithstanding that 

 his house, his squaws, his peltries, were gone at 

 one fell swoop, the loss scarcely disturbed his 

 equanimity ; and before the tobacco in his pipe was 

 half smoked out, he had ceased to think of his 

 misfortune. Certes, as he turned his apolla of 

 tenderloin, he sighed as he thought of the deli- 

 cate manipulations with which his Shoshone squaw, 

 Sah-qua-manish, was wont to beat to tenderness 

 the toughest bull meat — and missed the tending 



