60 THRILLING ADVENTURES. 



Their character has its humorous side, also. No persons can 

 put a broader estimate upon fun, however originated, and 

 around their camp-fires, jokes and stories are cracked and 

 spun, with a keen relish. Their exaggerated accounts, ridicu- 

 lous metaphors and comparisons, and slang-phrases, are truly 

 mirth-provoking. No one has more accurately drawn the 

 character and life of these men of the prairies and mountains, 

 than George Frederick Ruxton, a young Englishman, who 

 spent a considerable time among them, and joined in all their 

 pursuits and pleasures, with a sympathetic spirit. His nar- 

 rative, "Life in the Far West," has all the correctness of a 

 good history, and the picturesqueness of a good romance. 

 The following account of an attack upon the camp of the 

 hunters, by the Indians, and the manner in which it was 

 revenged, will illustrate the truth of our comments. 



Away to the head waters of the Platte, where several small 

 streams run into the south fork of that river, and head in the 

 broken ridges of the "Divide" which separates the valleys 

 of the Platte and Arkansas, were camped a band of trappers 

 on a creek called Bijou. It was the month of October, when 

 the early frosts of the coming winter had crisped and dyed 

 with sober brown the leaves of the cherry and quaking ash 

 belting the brooks ; and the ridges and peaks of the Rocky 

 Mountains were already^ covered with a glittering mantle of 

 snow, sparkling in the still powerful rays of the autumn sun. 



The camp had all the appearance of permanency ; for not 

 only did it comprise one or two unusually comfortable shan- 

 ties, but the numerous stages on which huge stripes of buf- 

 falo meat were hanging in process of cure, showed that the 

 party had settled themselves here in order to lay in a store 

 of provisions, or as it is termed in the language of the moun- 

 tains, "to make meat." Round the camp fed twelve or fif- 

 teen mules and horses, their fore-legs confined by hobbles of 

 raw hide ; and, guarding these animals, two men paced back- 

 ward and forward, driving in the stragglers, ascending ever 



