44 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 



" Mary," said he, " I'm about to break. They're himt- 

 ing me like a fall buck, and I'm bound to quit. Don't 

 think any more about me, for I shall never come back." 



Poor Mary burst into tears, and bent her head on the 

 table near which she sat. When she again raised it, she 

 saw La Bonte, his long rifle upon his shoulder, striding 

 with rapid steps from the house. Year after year rolled on, 

 and he did not return. 



CHAPTER III. 



A FEW days after his departure, La Bonte found himself 

 at St Louis, the emporium of the fur-trade, and the fast- 

 rising metropolis of the precocious settlements of the West. 

 Here, a prey to the agony of mind which jealousy, remorse, 

 and blighted love mix into a very puchero of misery, he 

 got into the company of certain "rowdies," a class that 

 every western city particularly abounds in ; and anxious 

 to drown his sorrows in any way, and quite unscrupulous 

 as to the means, he plunged into all the vicious excite- 

 ments of drinking, gambling, and fighting, which form 

 the every -day amusements of the rising generation of 

 St Louis. 



Perhaps in no other part of the United States where, 

 indeed, humanity is frequently to be seen in many curious 

 and unusual phases is there a population so marked in its 

 general character, and at the same time divided into such 

 distinct classes, as in the above-named city. Dating, as it 

 does, its foundation from yesterday, for what are thirty 

 years in the growth of a metropolis ? its founders are now 

 scarcely past middle life, regarding with astonishment 

 the growing works of their hands ; and whilst gazing upon 

 its busy quays, piled with grain and other produce of the 

 West, its fleets of huge steamboats lying tier upon tier 



