LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 155 



quite forgotten the use of such pieces of furniture. On 

 Fray Augustin offering him one, and begging him, with 

 many protestations, to be seated, that old mountain worthy 

 looked at it, and then at the padre, turned it round, and at 

 length, comprehending the intention, essayed to sit. This 

 he effected at last, and sat grimly for some moments, when, 

 seizing the chair by the back, he hurled it out of the open 

 door, exclaiming, " Wagh ! this coon ain't hamshot any- 

 how, and don't want such fixins, he don't ; " and gathering 

 his legs under his body, reclined in the manner customary 

 to him. There was a prodigious quantity of liquor con- 

 sumed that night, the hunters making up for their many 

 banyans ; but as it was the pure juice of the grape, it had 

 little or no effect upon their hard heads. They had not 

 much to fear from attacks on the part of the Californians ; 

 but, to provide against all emergencies, the padre and the 

 Gachupin were " hobbled," and confined in an inner room, 

 to which there was no ingress nor egress save through the 

 door which opened into the apartment where the moun- 

 taineers lay sleeping, two of the number keeping watch. 

 A fandango with the Indian girls had been proposed by 

 some of them, but Walker placed a decided veto on this. 

 He said " they had need of sleep now, for there was no 

 knowing what to-morrow might bring forth ; that they had 

 a long journey before them, and winter was coming on ; they 

 would have to ' streak ' it night and day, and sleep when 

 their journey was over, which would not be until Pike's 

 Peak Avas left behind them. It was now October, and the 

 way they'd have to hump it back to the mountains would 

 take the gristle off a painter's tail." 



Young Ned Wooton was not to the fore when the roll 

 was called. He was courting the Sonora wench Juanita, 

 and to some purpose, for we may at once observe that 

 the maiden accompanied the mountaineer to his distant 

 home, and at the present moment is sharing his lodge on 

 Hard-scrabble creek of the upper Arkansa, having been 

 duly and legally married by Fray Augustin before their 

 departure. 



But now the snow on the ridge of the Sierra Hadre, and 



