16 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 



maron : a huridi-ed and forty mules and oxen was froze that night, 

 wagh I" 



" Surely Black Harris was thar ; and the darndest liar was 

 Black Harris — for lies tumbled out of his month like boudins out 

 of a bufler's stomach. He was the child as saw the putrefied 

 forest in the Black Hills. Black Harris come in from Laramie ; 

 he'd been trapping three year an' more on Platte and the ' other 

 side ;' and, when he got into Liberty, he fixed himself right off 

 life a Saint Louiy dandy. Well, he sat to dinner one day in the 

 tavern, and a lady says to him : — 



" ' Well, Mister Harris, I hear you're a great travler.' 



" * Travler, marm,' says Black Harris, ' this niggur's no travler ; 

 I ar a trapper, marm, a mountain-man, wagh I' 



" ' Well, Mister Harris, trappers are great travlers, and you 

 goes over a sight of ground in your perishinations, I'll be bound 

 to say.' 



" ' A sight, marm, this coon's gone over, if that's the -way your 

 * stick floats. '=* I've trapped beaver on Platte and Arkansa, and 

 away up on Missoura and Yaller Stone ; I've trapped on Co- 

 lumbia, on Lewis Fork, and Green River ; I've trapped, marm, 

 on Grand River and the Heely (Gila). I've font the ' Blackfoot' 

 (and d — d bad Injuns they ar) ; I've raised the hair'f of more 

 tha7i one Apach, and made a Rapaho ' come' afore now ; I've 

 trapped in heav'n in airth, and h — ; and scalp my old head, 

 marm, but I've seen a putrified forest.' 



" <La, Mister Harris, a what V 



*' * A putrefied forest, marm, as sure as my rifle's got hind-sights, 

 and slie shoots center. I was out on the Black Hills, Bill Sub- 

 lette knows the time — the year it rakied fire — and every body 

 knows when that was. If thar wasn't cold doins about that time, 



* Meaning — if that's what you mean. The " stick" is tied to the beaver trap 

 by a string ; and, floating ou the water, points out its position, should a beaver 

 have earned it away. t Scalped. 



