LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 



47 



scene of their ad ventures,- wild as savages, determined to 

 enjoy themselves, for a time, in all the gaiety and dissipa- 

 tion of the western city. In one of the back streets of the 

 town is a tavern well known as the "Rocky-Mountain 

 House;" and hither the trappers resort, drinking and 

 fighting as long as their money lasts, which, as they are 

 generous and lavish as Jack Tars, is for a few days only. 

 Such scenes, both tragic and comic, as are enacted in the 

 Rocky-Mountain House, are beyond the powers of pen to 

 describe; and when a fandango is in progress, to which 

 congregate the coquettish belles from " Vide Poche," as the 

 French portion of the suburb is nicknamed, the grotesque 

 endeavours of the bear-like mountaineers to sport a figure 

 on the light fantastic toe, and their insertions into the 

 dance of the mystic jumps of Terpsichorean Indians when 

 engaged in the " medicine " dances in honour of bear, of 

 buffalo, or ravished scalp, are such startling innovations 

 on the choreographic art as would make the shade of Gallini 

 quake and gibber in his pumps. 



Passing the open doors and windows of the Mountain 

 House, the stranger stops short as the sounds of violin and 

 banjo twang upon his ears, accompanied by extraordinary 

 noises sounding unearthly to the greenhorn listener, but 

 recognised by the initiated as an Indian song roared out 

 of the stentorian lungs of a mountaineer, who, patting his 

 stomach with open hands to improve the necessary shake, 

 choruses the well-known Indian chant : 



Hi -Hi-Hi-Hi 



Hi-i-Hi-i Hi-i Hi-i 

 Hi-ya hi-ya hi-ya hi-ya 



Hi-ya hi-ya hi-ya hi-ya 

 Hi-ya hi-ya hi hi, 

 &c. &c. &c. 



and polishes off the high notes with a whoop which makes 

 the old wooden houses shake again, as it rattles and echoes 

 down the street. 



Here, over fiery " monaghahela," Jean Batiste,, the sal- 

 low half-breed voyageur from the north and who, desert- 

 ing the service of the "North -West" (the Hudson Bay 



