

LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 11 



festation of their presence, tne Indians appeared to be 

 satisfied ; or, what is more probable, the act of aggression 

 had been committed by some daring young warrior, who, 

 being out on his first expedition, desired to strike the first 

 coup, and thus signalise himself at the outset of the cam- 

 paign. After waiting some few minutes, expecting a re- 

 newal of the attack, the mountaineers in a body rose from 

 the ground and made towards the animals, with which they 

 presently returned to the camp ; and after carefully hob- 

 bling and securing them to pickets firmly driven into the 

 ground, mounting an additional guard, and examining the 

 neighbouring thicket, they once more assembled round the 

 fire, relit their pipes, and puffed away the cheering weed 

 as composedly as if no such being as a Redskin, thirsting 

 f jr their lives, was within a thousand miles of their peril- 

 ous encampment. 



" If ever thar was bad Injuns on these plains," at last 

 growled Killbuck, biting hard the pipe-stem between his 

 teeth, " it's these Rapahos, and the meanest kind at that." 



" Can't beat the Blackfeet, anyhow," chimed in one La 

 Bonte, from the Yellow Stone country, a fine handsome 

 specimen of a mountaineer. " However, one of you quit 

 this arrow out of my hump," he continued, bending for- 

 wards to the fire, and exhibiting an arrow sticking out un- 

 der his right shoulder-blade, and a stream of blood trickling 

 down his buckskin coat from the wound. 



This his nearest neighbour essayed to do ; but finding, 

 after a tug, that it " would not come," expressed his opinion, 

 that the offending weapon would have to be " butchered " 

 out. This was accordingly effected with the ready blade of 

 n scalp-knife ; and a handful of beaver-fur being placed on 

 the wound, and secured by a strap of buckskin round the 

 body, the wounded man donned his hunting-shirt once 

 more, and coolly set about lighting his pipe, his rifle lying 

 across his lap cocked and ready for use. 



It was now near midnight dark and misty ; and the 

 clouds, rolling away to the eastward from the lofty ridges 

 of the Rocky Mountains, were gradually obscuring the dim 

 starlight. As the lighter vapours faded from the moiui- 



