LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 135 



portion of some game they had lately killed. When re- 

 quested to produce this they hesitated ; but the trappers 

 looking hungry and angry at the same moment, an old 

 Indian drew from under his blanket several flaps of port- 

 able dried meat, which he declared was bear's. It was 

 but a small ration amongst so many ; but, being divided, 

 was quickly laid upon the fire to broil. The meat was 

 stringy, and of whitish colour, altogether unlike any flesh 

 the trappers had before eaten. Killbuck was the first to 

 discover this. He had been quietly masticating the last 

 mouthful of his portion, the stringiness of which required 

 more than usual dental exertion, when the novelty of the 

 flavour struck him as something singular. Suddenly his 

 jaws ceased their work, he thought a moment, took the 

 morsel from his mouth, looked at it intently, and dashed 

 it into the fire. 



" Man-meat, by G ! " he cried out ; and at the words 

 every jaw stopped work: the trappers looked at the meat 

 and each other. 



" I'm dog-gone if it ain't ! " cried old Walker, looking at 

 his piece, " and white meat at that, wagh ! " (and report 

 said it was not the first time he had tasted such viands ;) 

 and the conviction seizing each mind, every mouthful was 

 quickly spat into the fire, and the ire of the deceived 

 whites was instantly turned upon the luckless providers 

 of the feast. They saw the storm that was brewing, and 

 without more ado turned tail from the camp, and scuttled 

 up the bluffs, where, turning round, they fired a volley of 

 arrows at the tricked mountaineers, and instantly disap- 

 peared. 



However, the desert and its nomade pilferers were at 

 length passed ; the sandy plains became grass-covered 

 prairies ;' the monstrous cotton-wood on the creeks was 

 replaced by oak and ash ; the surface of the country grew 

 more undulating, and less broken up into canons and 

 ravines ; elk and deer leaped in the bottoms, and bands of 

 antelope dotted the plains, with occasional troops of wild 

 horses, too wary to allow the approach of man. On the 

 banks of a picturesque stream called the San Joaquim the 





