282 IN THE OLD WEST 



with the whites, and has " dug up the hatchet " to 

 " rub out " all who enter its country. The Kio- 

 way loves the pale-face, and gives him warning 

 (and " He Who Jumps " looks as if he deserves 

 something " on the prairie" for his information). 



Shawh-noh-qua-mish, " The Peeled Lodge-pole," 

 is there to excuse his Arapaho braves, who lately 

 made free with a band of horses belonging to the 

 fort. He promises the like shall never happen 

 again, and he, Shawh-noh-qua-mish, speaks with a 

 " single tongue." Over clouds of tobacco and 

 kinnik-kinnik these grave affairs are settled and 

 terms arranged. 



In the corral, groups of leather-clad mountain- 

 eers, with decks of euchre and seven up, gamble 

 away their hard-earned peltries. The employes 

 — mostly St. Louis Frenchmen and Canadian voy- 

 ageurs — are pressing packs of buffalo-skins, beat- 

 ing robes, or engaged in other duties of a trading- 

 fort. Indian squaws, the wives of mountaineers, 

 strut about in all the pride of beads and " fofar- 

 raw," jingling with bells and bugles, and happy as 

 paint can make them. Hunters drop in with ani- 

 mals packed with deer or buffalo meat to supply 

 the fort; Indian dogs look anxiously in at the 

 gateway, fearing to enter and encounter their 

 natural enemies, the whites ; and outside the fort, 

 at any hour of the day or night, one may safely 

 wager to see a dozen cayeutes or prairie wolves 

 loping round, or seated on their haunches, and 



