LA BONTE'S ADVENTURES. 141 



embers, while at a little distance lay what he fancied was the 

 carcass of a deer. 



"Hurrah, boy!" he exclaimed, as he drew near the fire. 

 "You've 'made' a 'raise,' I see." 



" Well, I have," rejoined the other, turning his meat with 

 the point of his butcher knife. " There's the meat, hos 

 help yourself." 



La Bonte drew the knife from his scabbard, and approached 

 the spot his companion was pointing to ; but what was his 

 horror to see the yet quivering body of one of the Indian 

 squaws, with a large portion of the flesh butchered from it, 

 part of which Forey was already greedily devouring. The 

 knife dropped from his hand, and his heart rose to his throat. 



The next day he and his companion struck the creek where 

 Rube and the other trapper had agreed to await them, and 

 found them in camp with plenty of meat, and about to start 

 again on their hunt, having given up the others for lost. 

 From the day they parted nothing was ever heard of La 

 Bonte 's other two companions, who doubtless fell a prey to 

 utter exhaustion, and were unable to return to the camp. 

 And thus ended the Digger expedition. 



It may appear almost incredible that men having civilized 

 blood in their veins could perpetrate such wanton and cold- 

 blooded acts of aggression on the wretched Indians, as that 

 detailed above ; but it is a fact that the mountaineers never 

 lose an opportunity of slaughtering these miserable Diggers, 

 and attacking their villages, often for the purpose of captur- 

 ing women, whom they carry off, and not unfrequently sell to 

 each other. In these attacks neither sex nor age is spared ; 

 and your mountaineer has as little compunction in taking the 

 life of an Indian woman, as he would have in sending his 

 rifle-ball through the brain of a Crow or Blackfoot warrior. 



It may be some satisfaction to the reader to know that La 

 Bonte, after a mountain and prairie life of about fifteen years, 

 during which he met with many adventures of a character 



