LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 69 



animal carry it away. A little further on, and near 

 another " run," three traps were set ; and over these 

 Luke placed a little stick, which he first dipped into a 

 mysterious-looking phial containing his " medicine." * 



The next morning they visited the traps, and had the 

 satisfaction of finding three fine beaver secured in the first 

 three they visited, and the fourth, which had been carried 

 away, they discovered by the float-stick alittle distance down 

 the stream, with a large drowned beaver between its teeth. 



The animals being carefully skinned, they returned to 

 camp with the choicest portions of the meat, and the tails, 

 on which they most luxuriously supped ; and La Bonte 

 was fain to confess that all his ideas of the superexcellence 

 of buffalo were thrown in the shade by the delicious 

 beaver-tail, the rich meat of which he was compelled to 

 allow was "great eating," unsurpassed by "tender loin" 

 or " boudin," or other meat of whatever kind he had eaten 

 of before. 



The country where La Bonte and his companions were 

 trapping is very curiously situated in the extensive bend 

 of the Platte which encloses the Black Hill range on the 

 north, and which bounds the large expanse of broken tract 

 known as the Laramie Plains, their southern limit being 

 the base of the Medicine Bow Mountains. From the 

 north-western corner of the bend, an inconsiderable range 

 extends to the westward, gradually increasing in height 

 until it reaches an elevated plain, which forms a break in 

 the stupendous chain of the llocky Mountains, and affords 

 the easy passage now known as the Great, or South Pass. 

 So gradual is the ascent of this portion of the mountain, 

 that the traveller can scarcely believe he is crossing the 

 dividing ridge- between the waters which flow into the 

 Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and that in a few minutes he 

 can fling two sticks into two neighbouring streams, one to 

 be carried thousands of miles, traversed by the eastern 

 waters in their course to the Gulf of Mexico, the other to 

 be borne a lesser distance to the Gulf of California. 



* A substance obtained from a gland in the scrotum of the beaver, 

 and used to attract that animal to the trap. 





