LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 49 



metal, carrying about thirty-two balls to the pound, stocked 

 to the muzzle, and mounted with brass ; its only ornament 

 being a buffalo bull, looking exceedingly ferocious, which 

 was not very artistically engraved upon the trap in the 

 stock. Here, too, he laid in a few pounds of powder and 

 lead, and all the necessaries for a long hunt. 



His next visit was to a smith's store, which smith was 

 black by trade and black by nature, for he was a nigger, 

 and, moreover, celebrated as being the best maker of 

 beaver-traps in St Louis ; and of him he purchased six 

 new traps, paying for the same twenty dollars procuring, 

 at the same time, an old trap-sack made of stout buffalo- 

 skin in which to carry them. 



We next find La Bonte* and his companion one Luke, 

 better known as Grey-Eye, one of his eyes having been 

 " gouged " in a mountain fray at Independence, a little 

 town situated on the Missouri, several hundred miles 

 above St Louis, and within a short distance of the Indian 

 frontier. 



Independence may be termed the " prairie port " of the 

 western country. Here the caravans destined for Santa 

 Fe, and the interior of Mexico, assembled to complete 

 their necessary equipment. Mules and oxen are purchas- 

 ed, teamsters hired, and all stores and outfit laid in here 

 for the long journey over the wide expanse of prairie 

 ocean. Here, too, the Indian traders and the Rocky-Moun- 

 tain trappers rendezvous, collecting in sufficient force to 

 insure their safe passage through the Indian country. At 

 the seasons of departure and arrival of these bands, the 

 little town presents a lively scene of bustle and confusion. 

 The wild and dissipated mountaineers get rid of their last 

 dollars in furious orgies, treating all comers to galore of 

 drink, and pledging each other, in horns of potent whisky, 

 to successful hunts and " heaps of beaver." When every 

 cent has disappeared from their pouches, the free trapper 

 often makes away with rifle, traps, and animals, to gratify 

 his "dry" (for your mountaineer is never "thirsty") ; and 

 then, " hos and beaver " gone, is necessitated to hire him- 

 self to one of the leaders of big bands, and hypothecate his 

 D 



