24 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 



" If ever thar was bad Injuns on these plains," at last yowled 

 Kill buck, biting hard the pipe-stem between his teeth, " it's these 

 Rapahos, and the meanest kind at that." 



" Can't beat the Blackfeet, any how," chimed in one La Bonte, 

 from the Yellow Stone country, a fine handsome specimen of a 

 mountaineer. *' However, one of you quit this arrow out of my 

 hump," he continued, bending forward to the fire, and exhibiting 

 an arrow sticking out under his right shoulder-blade, and a stream 

 of blood trickling down his buckskin coat from the wound. 



This his nearest neighbor essayed to do ; but finding, after a 

 tug, that it " would not come," expressed his opinion that the 

 offending weapon would have to be " butchered" out. This was 

 accordingly effected with the ready blade of a scalp-knife ; and a 

 handful of beaver-fur being placed on the wound, and secured by 

 a strap of buckskin round the body, the wounded man donned his 

 hunting-shirt once more, and coolly set about lighting his pipe, his 

 rifle lying across his lap, cocked and ready for use. 



It was now near midnight — dark and misty ; and the clouds, 

 rolling away to the eastward from the lofty ridges of the Rocky 

 Mountains, were gradually obscuring the dim starlight. As the 

 lighter vapors faded from the mountains, a thick black cloud suc- 

 ceeded them, and settled over the loftier peaks of the chain, faintly 

 visible through the gloom of night, while a mass of fleecy scud 

 soon overspread the whole sky. A hollow moaning sound crept 

 through the valley, and the upper branches of the cotton woods, 

 with their withered leaves, began to rustle with the first breath 

 of the coming storm. Huge drops of rain fell at intervals, hissing 

 as they dropped into the blazing fires, and pattering on the skins 

 with which the hunters hurriedly covered the exposed baggage. 

 The mules near the camp cropped the grass with quick and greedy 

 bites round the circuit of their pickets, as if conscious that the 

 storm would soon prevent their feeding, and already humped their 

 backs as the chilling rain fell upon their flanks. The prairie 



