IN THE OIJD WEST 161 



band. Your refined trappers, however, who, after 

 many years of bachelor hfe, incHne to take to 

 theniselves a better half, often undertake an ex- 

 pedition into the settlements of New Mexico, where 

 not unfrequently they adopt a Young Lochinvar 

 system in procuring the required rib, and have 

 been known to carry off vi et armis, from the midst 

 of a fandango in Fernandez or El Rancho of Taos, 

 some dark-skinned beauty — with or without her 

 own consent is a matter of unconcern — and bear 

 the ravished fair one across the mountains, 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 " fofar- 

 raw." Neither can they make moccasins, or dress 

 skins ; nor are they so schooled to perfect obedience 

 to their lords and masters as to stand a " lodge- 

 poling," 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. Tliat 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 philosophized, " of hav- 

 ing 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 ani- 

 mals and peltry, he had lost several hundred dol- 



