HUNTERS AND TRAPPERS OF THE FAR WEST. 61 



and anon the bluffs which overhung the river, and leaning on 

 their long rifles, while they swept with their eyes the sur- 

 rounding prairie. Three or four fires burned in the encamp- 

 ment, at some of which Indian women carefully tended sundry 

 steaming pots ; while round one, which was in the centre of 

 it, four or five stalwart hunters, clad in buckskin, sat cross- 

 legged, pipe in mouth. 



They were a trapping party from the north fork of Platte, 

 on their way to wintering-ground in the more southern valley 

 of the Arkansas ; some, indeed, meditating a more extensive 

 trip, even to the distant settlements of New Mexico, the 

 paradise of mountaineers. The elder of the company was a 

 tall, gaunt man, with a face browned by twenty years' expo- 

 sure to the extreme clime of the mountains ; his long black 

 hair, as yet scarcely tinged with gray, hanging almost to his 

 shoulders, but his cheeks and chin clean shaven, after the 

 fashion of the mountain men. His dress was the usual hunt- 

 ing-frock of buckskin, with long fringes down the seams, with 

 pantaloons similarly ornamented, and moccasons of Indian 

 make. While his companions puffed their pipes in silence, 

 he narrated a few of his former experiences of western life. 



As all the mountaineers sat cross-legged round the fire, 

 pipe in mouth, and with Indian gravity, listened to the yarn 

 of the old trapper, interrupting him with an occasional wagh ! 

 or with the exclamation of some participators in the events 

 then under narration, who would every now and then put in 

 a corroborative " This child remembers that fix," " or hyar's 

 a niggur lifted hair on that spree," &c. that a whizzing noise 

 was heard in the air, followed by a sharp but suppressed cry 

 from one of the hunters. 



In an instant the mountaineers had sprung from their 

 seats, and, seizing the ever-ready rifle, each one had thrown 

 himself on the ground a few paces beyond the light of the 

 fire, (for it was now nightfall ;) but not a word escaped them, 

 as lying close, with their keen eyes directed towards the 



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