LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 3 



" Well, it did." 



"Bill Bent his boys camped the other side the trail, 

 and they was all mountain-men, wagh ! and Bill Williams, 

 and Bill Tharpe (the Pawnees took his hair on Pawnee 

 Fork last spring) : three Bills, and them three's all ' gone 

 under.' Surely Hatcher went out that time ; and wasn't 

 Bill Garey along, too ? Didn't him and Chabonard sit in 

 camp for twenty hours at a deck of Euker ? Them was 

 Bent's Indian traders up on Arkansa. Poor Bill Bent! 

 them Spaniards made meat of him. He lost his topknot 

 to Taos. A ' clever ' man was Bill Bent as / ever know'd 

 trade a robe or 'throw' a bufler in his tracks. Old St 

 Vrain could knock the hind-sight off him though, when it 

 came to shootin', and old Silverheels spoke true, she did : 

 ' plumcenter ' she was, eh?" 



" Well, she wasn't nothin' else." 



"The Greasers* paid for Bent's scalp, they tell me. 

 Old St Vrain went out of Santa Fe with a company of 

 mountain-men, and the way they made 'em sing out was 

 'slick as shootin'.' He ' counted a coup,' did St Vrain. 

 He thro wed a Pueblo as had on poor Bent's shirt. I guess 

 he tickled that niggur's hump-ribs. Fort William t ain't 

 the lodge it was, an' never will be agin, now he's gone 

 under ; but St Vrain's ' pretty much of a gentleman,' too ; 

 if he ain't. I'll be dog-gone eh, Bill?" 



"Heisso-o." 



" Chavez had his waggons along. He was only a Span- 

 iard anyhow, and some of his teamsters put a ball into 

 him his next trip, and made a raise of his dollars, wagh ! 

 Uncle Sam hung 'em for it, I heard, but can't b'lieve 

 it, nohow. If them Spaniards wasn't born for shootin', 

 why was beaver made? You was with us that spree, 

 Jemmy?" 



" No sirre-e ; I went out when Spiers lost his animals 

 on Cimmaron : a hundred and forty mules and oxen was 

 froze that night, wagh ! " 



* The Mexicans are called " Spaniards " or " Greasers " (from 

 their greasy appearance) by the Western people. 

 + Bent's Indian trading fort on the Arkansa. 



